Some Justice for Sandy Hook
by Ralph Nader
Ralf Nader Radio Hou
August 27, 2022
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/som ... andy-hook/
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 422 TRANSCRIPT
Tom Morello: I'm Tom Morello and you're listening to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with my trusty co-host David Feldman. Hello, David.
David Feldman: Hello, Steve. This is very exciting. We have a full audience. Steve Skrovan: Got a full house here for our live Zoom event, which we always appreciate. And we've got the man of the hour here, Ralph Nader. Hello Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hello, everybody around the country and the world who is watching.
Steve Skrovan: Yeah, we've got Germany. We've got Cape Town, South Africa as well as all across the country. And you're here on a great day on a great program. Our guest today will be Attorney Josh Koskoff, who has taken Remington [Arms] and other arms manufacturers to court on behalf of victims of the Sandy Hook in Las Vegas mass shootings. Mr. Koskoff’s work has held the manufacturers accountable in court. It is also forced a reckoning with the insurance companies, right-wing media and others who have been profiting—let's just put it that way—off the dangerous marketing strategies of gun manufacturers.
Holding negligent or malicious companies accountable isn't just about the money. It is, of course, partly about the money because profit-driven corporations only change when their bottom line is threatened. But taking companies like Remington to court allows the victims, their families, plaintiff's attorneys, and the public at large to access internal documents that not only prove wrongdoing in the past but help prevent harm in the future. And that is the importance of torts that if you're a listener of the show, you know we talk about all the time.
So first, Ralph and Mr. Koskoff will go through the case, then we'll invite our live Zoom audience to ask Mr. Koskoff some questions. As always somewhere in the middle we'll check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber. But first, let's hear from the man who secured a landmark settlement in a case against the firearms industry that everyone thought was “a losing proposition”. David?
David Feldman: Josh Koskoff is an attorney specializing in medical malpractice and personal injury at Koskoff & Bieder. His work includes a recent $73 million settlement on behalf of families of the Sandy Hook shooting in a case against Remington, the company that made and marketed the AR-15 used in that shooting. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Josh Koskoff.
Josh Koskoff: Thank you very much to you, David, to Steve, and of course, to one of my idols growing up, the first person I ever voted for, actually, Ralph Nader. It's a little bit surreal to now be on a program with Ralph and I truly treasure it.
Ralph Nader: Well, thank you very much, Josh. And before we get into your groundbreaking case, let's talk a little bit about history. Ever since the Columbine massacre in Colorado about 20 years ago, there have been increasing numbers of these massacres by young men largely who were known as loners by their associates or neighbors and who harbored some grievance, had rather implicating websites to indicate how deep their torment was or their disassociation from their normal community.
How do you explain that in almost all Western countries, for example, there are no such massacres? Japan has fewer arms related deaths in the entire country of 120 million people than in a mid-sized town in the US. How do you explain this? And does it have anything to do with the enhanced weaponry? And does it have anything to do with the enhanced social media and the enormous publicity one massacre is given that tends to arouse some young person to do the same thing in another community? Give us some context here.
Josh Koskoff: Sure, Ralph. And this is not an area that I knew much about ten years ago. In fact, I was somewhat ignorant about the gun industry, and I certainly didn't know anything about gun laws, but I had to do my homework over the last ten years. And I do think that—first of all, there's a lot to your question, not surprisingly, a lot of the factors. To point out one obvious factor is the sheer number of firearms available and in private ownership in this country, something along the lines of 400 million firearms. And firearms, unlike other products that we know deteriorate over time, firearms don't. So, I mean, that's what—just ask Alec Baldwin. Firearms, once purchased are useful to kill forever.
So there's just that fundamental fact. But I think the interesting thing I took from my deep dive into the issues in the Sandy Hook case is that there were in fact always available AR-15s, for example, or what we would commonly call assault rifles, in this country. When we were growing up, there were AR-15s, but we didn't know about them as kids or as young adults because the industry had no access to us. They couldn't reach us. They couldn't market to us. But they were always available, and we didn't have the mass shooting problem that we now do.
And I think you touched on it, and I think we would all agree, and all your listeners would agree that being a troubled loner, a young kid, going through the turmoils of adolescences or being bullied, that definitely we had when I was growing up. And I remember being on the wrong end of that kind of situation. But the gun industry couldn't take advantage of that. They couldn't try to acquire me as a future consumer or promised me an end to all of my problems with a glorious combat mission. And that did change.
It actually really changed in about the mid 2000s, but it was probably changing before then. The Columbine kids got their hands on some pretty nasty firearms, but it was pretty much of an exception. Because really, if you and your audience think about it, the mass shootings that we're seeing that we think of have really all occurred in the last 15 years. And that's as a direct result of the ability of the firearms industry to reach minors and troubled young adults going around the parents through the internet, through first person shooter games. And it's also because of a deliberate effort to sell lore in these combat missions of lone gunmen. And so it's no secret. You have been on this issue for years, Ralph. If you market a product for a particular use, it's going to be used by certain people in that way. It's just human behavior. And it's why marketing is a multibillion-dollar industry.
Ralph Nader: Well, the arms industry used to sell primarily to customers of the Pentagon for use in wars, then they would sell to hunters, and they would sell to marksman. And now they're micro selling more and more to different groups of people, including direct selling to what they must have known are troubled young men with fantasies. And you dug up the marketing messages for that in your suit regarding the Sandy Hook massacre against Remington. Can you describe just how detailed and tailored these advertisements were?
Josh Koskoff: Well, it should come as no shock that because you see the tip of the iceberg of the marketing, which is of course the promotional material and the slogans and the emotional connection they're trying to make with a potential consumer, and the iceberg itself reflects a very deliberative effort to reach, to your point, and target an ever-expanding audience, notably a younger audience.
Because, again, I can't emphasize enough, the normal barriers that would've restricted an inappropriate or immature consumer in the days prior to the internet were obliterated. And the parent's role has been obliterated, such that the industry has taken full advantage of courting these young users with ferocious military weapons and promoting what is essentially a criminal use. And the parent has no idea what's going on.
And so what we found in a general way, and we'll be releasing the documents to the public over the next three months or so, is what you'd kind of expect, as if they were selling widgets-- spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations deliberate efforts to target, as you note, a more micro target, different segments that had previously been unavailable to the industry. And of course they sell different messages to different target markets.
Ralph Nader: Tell us some of the phrases they used, which they knew would reach these troubled young men in their late teens and early 20s.
Josh Koskoff: One is “Consider your man card reissued”. I think people have seen that. Many people who are at least maybe peripherally familiar with the type of marketing. Prior to Bushmaster’s acquisition. Bushmaster was a major manufacturer of AR-15s. There were only two Bushmasters in Colt. And their marketing, I think, Ralph, you and I would even say was sober, responsible marketing prior to their acquisition by a private equity fund. And then there was an inflection point where they started a more aggressive promotion of not the weapon per se, but the emotion and the masculinity that the weapon conveyed. And so they equated ownership and use of an AR-15 with masculinity. So one of their ads said, “Consider Your Man Card Reissued.” And in fact, you could even earn your “man card”. You would get a card if you purchased one of these AR-15s.
Another one was something that we made great use out of in a very tragic situation, which is they had a weapon called the Adaptive Combat Rifle and their promotion of that was “Forces of opposition, bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered.” “Forces of opposition, bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered” for a product that is being sold to any civilian kid, really, that wanted one. So that's clearly the promotion of a lone gunman mass shooting. There's no non-criminal use that could be described in that way in civilian life. That's an ambush.
And then that finally I'd say, and this will strike you all, I think, as harrowing. They had a promotion that said, “Clear the Room, [Cover the Rooftop], Rescue the hostage,” but clear the room. And when I put that question about clearing the room, I mean, what could that possibly mean when you're talking about the commercial sale of an AR15? How can you clear a room? And I asked them to describe, Ralph, “take as much time as you want, Mr. Gun executive, describe how you can clear a room with a commercial use in a noncriminal way.” And they couldn't do it. It was like a deer in the headlights. And when I asked them whether they could think of an instance of criminal use of one of their weapons in which a room was cleared, invariably, they had to agree that the Sandy Hook school shooting fit that description.
Ralph Nader: Well, describe for our listeners how much more powerful the AR-15 is compared to its predecessors. And also tell them that it was once banned in the United States and what happened.
Josh Koskoff: That's right. Well, let's start with the first question, which was very pivotal to my understanding of what an AR-15 was and its relationship to a regular firearm, to uncover declassified field tests of the AR-15 in the jungles of Vietnam and reading about actual reports from soldiers who rated military weapons. The military was looking for a new battlefield weapon to sort of compete with the Kalashnikov rifle or what folks known as the AK-47, which is sort of like the gold standard assault rifle. So this company ArmaLite developed the AR-15. And Ralph, there are actual ratings by soldiers in different categories. The tactical efficacy of the weapon, the lethality of it, the ease of use, whether it jams or not, its use in an ambush, and all these types of things that would be very helpful in the battlefield and taking on the enemy. And the AR-15 destroyed its competition, including something called the Thompson submachine gun or the Tommy Gun as folks may know of it.
And what I think is so telling about that is that the Tommy Gun was effectively banned in 1934 by the government. It was really taxed into oblivion, but the concern was that it was too dangerous for our communities. And in fact, gangsters like Al Capone and Pretty Boy Floyd had used the Tommy Gun in some very notorious mass shootings that today would hardly rate. They wouldn't even be on the front page of a paper. But everybody was freaked out about the Tommy Gun’s threat to public safety. And Democrats, Republicans, the NRA [National Rifle Association], and even Colt, the manufacturers, all got together to figure out a way to effectively ban the Tommy Gun. So that's important when you consider that the AR-15 destroyed the Tommy Gun in terms of its desire to be used to kill enemy combatants at war in these field testing. So what does that tell you about how dangerous this weapon is?
Ralph Nader: And when was it banned by Congress and why is it no longer banned?
Josh Koskoff: Sorry, the Tommy Gun is still banned and led to the ban on automatic rifles. The AR-15—what we'll call Assault Rifle AR-15 type rifle and there are others in that category, but for the purposes of this conversation, we'll just call them AR-15s—they were banned in 1994, not just by [Bill] Clinton and Democrats, but with the help of President [Ronald] Reagan, former President Reagan, who was very concerned about their use by criminals to effectively outgun the police. The concern at that time wasn't so much about mass shootings because, again, there really weren't any mass shootings with the AR-15 at that time. Of course you didn't have the ability to promote crime essentially to sell the weapon that you do today.
But putting that aside, there was a lot of concern about the police being outgunned and they got it past Congress, but that had a ten-year sunset provision. So it would have to be renewed after ten years. Ten years later in 2004, we were at war with Iraq, and we had a different administration and there wasn't a lot of energy, and the NRA, they do a good job lobbying. It's not a moral job, but it's an effective job. They did a good job lobbying Congress not to renew the assault weapons ban.
It is also questionable whether the assault weapons ban had had the desired efficacy. It wouldn't be surprising if it wasn't the most effective legislation. Because one of the problems I've seen is that elected officials are busy. They've got a lot of issues to deal with and most of them don't understand what makes a weapon dangerous and what doesn't. So the assault weapons ban was in large part they banned things that looked scary, right? Like a grenade launcher or certain stock, but they didn't really ban the core features of the weapon that make it so lethal. But in any event, there was just no appetite to renew it in 2004. And that of course helped sales as well.
Ralph Nader: Listen, I'm sure listeners want to zero in on your case, your celebrated case that you brought against Remington. Nobody thought you had a chance. Go through the sequence, but first describe the massacre briefly that occurred in Sandy Hook in Connecticut. And then there was other cases that were filed before you entered the litigation just briefly and then go into your litigation.
Josh Koskoff: Okay. Sure. First, the description of the shooting is brief because it was a brief amount of time. Four minutes and 59 seconds, 156 shots fired, 26 killed, 20 children, all first graders between the ages of six and seven, and six adult educators. It's noteworthy that although from the first shot to the last shot was about four minutes and 59 seconds, the shooter wasn't shooting that whole time. Probably the shooter was shooting for two minutes or less. And that tells you all you need to know about the fire power of this weapon.
There was one lawsuit filed right away that was instantly, and I think appropriately, excoriated by legal community and the general public as being one of those opportunistic type things. There was another lawsuit that was filed against the school because there were issues about the failure of one of the classrooms to lock. I did not handle that case. It was not really a case that I was comfortable with. But as a principal of tort law, I couldn't say it wasn't a valid case. But somebody else filed that case. And we were really looking at whether or not there were any legal causes of action as it related to the weapon and its manufacturer and sale effectively. And as it turned out, its marketing.
Ralph Nader: Now, there were laws that protected the arms industry, including in Connecticut. They shielded them from any kind of civil action for the use of their weapons. And you found a statute in Connecticut that went into one of the exemptions under this Connecticut state law shielding the arms manufacturers, which is they had to not violate the marketing rules of the state of Connecticut. And that's where you found your entry.
Josh Koskoff: Effectively. Exactly. And I think this goes back to your original sort of observation, Ralph, about how it’s more and more becoming a problem and when and where and why it happened. So in 2004, remember this, so you have the assault weapons ban lapsing. In 2005, you have Congress passing, giving the NRA and the gun industry was effectively a Christmas present and providing a thumb on the scale of the industry in what otherwise would be settled in courts, right? And we've seen this in other industries from time to time, but not quite like the gun industry. So they provided what was thought to be an immunity and is an immunity of sorts, but it's not an absolute immunity. And it never was.
I think there was a perception prior to our lawsuit that you couldn't sue a gun manufacturer. I heard that time and again. I was luckily naive enough and ignorant enough and hadn't been involved in any cases to be sort of weighed down by the pessimism. And what the immunity says is that—it's called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. And it has a lot of protections like it basically obliterates your common law negligence causes of act
ion, but it's the protection of lawful commerce. It doesn't protect unlawful commerce and arms. And so what you're talking about is Connecticut had a state statute that prescribed a certain marketing conduct. Every state has these statutes, consumer protection statutes. And we said, “That's a statute that is applicable to the sale or marketing of firearms, and you, Remington, et al, broke that law.” And that allegation withstood the challenge by the defendants to dismiss the case pursuant to the immunity. So we effectively got through that immunity.
Ralph Nader: And you found that Remington appealed it to the Supreme Court of Connecticut. You won there. They appealed it to this US Supreme Court, which denied to take the case.
Josh Koskoff: Yeah. I think if I gave the impression that this was a motion that was filed that was just granted or that they lost and the case went forward, then I gave definitely the wrong impression. What I just described took years and years to sort out before we even engaged in really meaningful discovery. And in fact, the trial court did dismiss the case and it was the Supreme Court of Connecticut that reversed in part because there was another part of the case that we don't have time to get into, I'm sure, but which I thought it was a valid claim, but the Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that it wasn't.
But it didn't matter because we were green lit and got through the immunity, which meant we got to a place that none had really been before in terms of a manufacturer. And that was discovery. So if you can imagine, it's like opening the doors to a cave, a dark cave that's never been explored. And that's how I kind of looked at it.
Ralph Nader: Well, listeners should know that Josh Koskoff is a very rare trial lawyer. Most trial lawyers would've been daunted by the corporate law firms representing Remington. And even after winning the legal issue, they would've settled for far less than Josh settled for for his families at Sandy Hook or his clients. But he also demanded the production of documents, the internal memos, the marketing shenanigans, the boasting, and Remington resisted that. But he held firm, and he got over $70 million settlement, but he also got—what—30,000 documents, which you are now empowered by the settlement to release to the public as you wish and when you wish to further enlighten the marketing shenanigans of the industry.
Josh Koskoff: Correct. I mean, it was closer to probably now 70,000 individual documents, some of which have many pages. Of course, a lot of the documents you get, as you know, Ralph, don't help advance any understanding of what happened. You get everything dumped on you. And so part of the process is curating those documents so that you are actually helping in the understanding to the general public and helping—although I appreciate the kind words, really, when you have families like this, they're resolve to get this done and to not settle for anything short of a) the full amounts of the available coverage and b) but more importantly, the documents so that they could achieve the families’ one main unifying goal because they're all different people, remember, was to do whatever they could to help prevent the next Sandy Hook. So I know I grew motivation from their determination.
Ralph Nader: Kudos to those valiant families for persisting. And a lot of plaintiffs would've said, this has been an excruciating multi-year litigation; were really impatient; we can't take the pressure anymore. But they really wanted the public to know. And they wanted the case and the settlement to be a deterrent, as you say. That's one of the purposes of tort law, not just compensation, but public disclosure of the wrongdoing and deterrence against future repetitions. Well, do you see any deterrents among the arms manufacturers? Are they cleaning up their act?
Josh Koskoff: No, I don't think they are cleaning up their act. From what I can tell from my early look at the Uvalde case and the Highland Park case and the Buffalo case, which is the same weapon that was used at Sandy Hook, so I already knew about that. What I can tell from these other companies is they're drawing a page out of the same Bushmaster Remington playbook that delivered the Sandy Hook shooting and played a role there. I can establish, really, that it played a role. So, look, I don't think it's a secret that the gun industry is not known for self-reflection or flexibility or even consideration of public safety. It's not just an industry….
Ralph Nader: How about its insurance companies? Like Liberty Mutual was one of the insurance… are they putting pressure on their clients, the arms manufacturers, because they have to shell out the money?
Josh Koskoff: Yeah. You know, what's interesting, Ralph, to understand how this industry, the scale of the industry is really, really small industry—the gun industry is. We think of it as a massive industry because of the harm that it causes and the damage it does. 40,000 deaths or something like that a year. And of course it has a presence in our daily life, almost unlike any other industry. But that is a perception that is at odds with the reality. It's about 1/50th. For every dollar of the tobacco industry, the gun industry is about 2 cents.
So, the reason I'm saying that in response to your question about the insurance industry is the insurance doesn't collect a lot of premiums from the gun industry. And I don't think that they were—from what I can tell, they are more hands-off of the gun industry than they are certainly of my driving/my auto rates. I hear from my insurance carrier every time I get a speeding ticket. But I don't think that—from what I understand, the insurance industry until our case really didn't look into the practices of their insured. And I'm hopeful that one of the results of this will be that they will do that because they are a great free market. Of course, we all have issues with the insurance industry as well. But one thing the insurance industry can deliver is free-market help in the face of public health crisis like the gun epidemic by creating a free-market incentive to cleaning up the act of the gun industry. So I'm hopeful that happens. But I think that remains to be seen.
Ralph Nader: Well, are there going to be similar lawsuits or are there similar lawsuits in the Buffalo massacre, the Highland Park massacre, and the Uvalde massacre against the arms manufacturers?
Josh Koskoff: Well, I think that right now they're all under investigation is my understanding. And full disclosure - our firm represents families in all of those instances - one thing I think is a step in the right direction. And I think this will sound like maybe deja-vu of a nature to you. But ten years ago, we had no competition for this case. No lawyer wanted to touch it. Even some of my partners, the best they could sort of muster was “Good luck with that.”
And ten years later, I'm finding that in the Uvalde situation, there are lawyers who really want to be involved, who see a possibility or a path, no longer believing it to be impossible. And I think that one of the legacies I hope of the Remington case is that it did shatter that perception of invulnerability and engage trial lawyers who could be such a part of the solution here and who historically have been. And I'm talking to you, of course, as the poster (man) child of what trial lawyers can do. And we stand on the shoulders of people like you who have taken on other cases. I'm not just saying that because you're interviewing me. I'm saying it because it's true. And people listening, I think many of people listening will be lawyers and many won't, but I think when trial lawyers are doing the best of work they can, they are having an effect that helps communities and holds corporate America to task.
Ralph Nader: We're talking with Josh Koskoff, the plaintiff lawyer who brought the case against Remington Rand involving the Sandy Hook massacre and broke ground in this area. One last question before we go to the audience. I'm sure some of our audience are wondering about the lack of impact of public opinion. The vast majority of people in this country want background checks. They want safety locks. A smaller majority wants a ban on these automatic semi-machine guns. Even some members of the NRA want background checks and other gun safety controls. And yet Congress is still under the influence, at least for a workable opposition to gun safety laws under the NRA. When do you think this logjam is going to break? Because we used to think that if there was a massacre every year, it would put pressure on members of Congress to change their minds. But when do you think that's going to break through since you've been in touch with members of Congress?
Josh Koskoff: Well, first of all, I don't want to give the impression that I've been involved in the political process. The reason I was in Washington recently was really just to support the Uvalde families and shepherd them. I actually by design stayed away from politics in this case. And in fact, one thing I think I would've been aware of even ten years ago was that the government had been almost historically impotent at dealing with this issue that we have, this shameful issue we have. And I don't think it is going to resolve anytime soon. And I do think that there could be— and there have been mass shootings, not just once a year, but once every other month and it hasn't moved the needle. And I think it is a parallel to the extremism that is the tail that's wagging the dog of politics, especially on the right today.
Your point is well taken. A majority of the voting electorate would favor tighter regulations along the nature of what you said, but we're not in a majority. We're in a minority-controlled capitalist situation right now and that's not changing anytime soon. I mean, it's very equivalent in my mind to the purism that would kick out one of the most conservative people that I've been aware of, which is Liz Cheney from a party because she won't back an extremist theory. This is an industry and the NRA is a lobbying agency that caters to its most extreme members. Because to be honest, they would sacrifice every person who buys one or two weapons in favor of the people who buy ten, 15, 20 weapons. And so they're not about to hack off their most luminous buyers. That's a fact. I've seen the numbers. So that's your answer, Ralph. And the NRA, so one more thing. Because I think that one of the things that listeners may want to take from this, the perception versus the reality--the perception that the industry is a big industry, the reality that it's a small industry; the perception they can't be sued, the reality that they can; the perception that you have to abide by the NRA edicts or you're not going to get re-elected also may be inconsistent with the reality. But it's a strong and dangerous perception.
Ralph Nader: And the perception that the NRA and others pour campaign money into the coffers of these politicians is also a reality. Let's go to the audience. And people who are outside the country watching this should remember Josh Koskoff’s estimate, which is pretty accurate, that about 40,000-gun related deaths occur in this country every year, which is far, far greater than all the gun related deaths that occur in all Western countries, including Japan and Taiwan.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Josh Koskoff. We will link to his work at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Up next, an exciting update about the Capitol Hill Citizen and a Q&A with our virtual audience. But first, let’s check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber.
Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, August 26, 2022; I'm Russell Mokhiber. A $1.7-billion jury verdict against Ford Motor Company involving a fatal truck crash called into question the roof strength of older-model Super Duty pickups sold by the company over a roughly 17-year period. That's according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Last week a jury in Georgia reached a verdict in the case involving a 2014 rollover of a Ford F- 250 pickup truck that left two people dead. The jury determined that punitive damages should be imposed on Ford for selling 5.2 million Super Duty trucks with what the plaintiff's attorney said were dangerously weak roofs that could crush passengers in a rollover accident. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Alex Jones Trial: Witnesses Describe Conspiracy Theories
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Court upholds Alex Jones sanctions in Sandy Hook case [Jones Accuses Mattei of Planting Child Pornography in Emails to Jones: “You’re trying to set me up with child porn,” Jones said on the show. “One million dollars, you little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike.”]
by Dave Collins
AP News
July 23, 2020 GMT
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a sanction against Infowars host Alex Jones over an angry outburst on his web show against an attorney for relatives of some of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, who are suing him for defamation.
The court issued a 7-0 decision rejecting Jones’ claims that his comments aimed at attorney Christopher Mattei were protected by free speech rights, and upholding a lower court’s ruling that Jones violated numerous orders to turn over documents to the families’ lawyers.
The lower court judge barred Jones from filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, as a penalty for his actions.
The families of eight victims of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and an FBI agent who responded to the massacre are suing Jones, Infowars and others for promoting a theory that the shooting was a hoax. A 20-year-old gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself at the school, after having killed his mother at their Newtown home.
The families said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones’ followers because of the hoax conspiracy.
Jones, whose show is based in Austin, Texas, has since said he believes the shooting occurred.
The sanction came after Jones, on Infowars last year, accused Mattei of planting child pornography that was found in email metadata files that Jones turned over to the Sandy Hook families’ lawyers. Jones’ former lawyer, Norman Pattis, who argued the case before the state Supreme Court, has said the pornography was in emails sent to Jones that were never opened.
“You’re trying to set me up with child porn,” Jones said on the show. “One million dollars, you little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike.”
Jones mentioned Mattei by name and pounded on a picture of Mattei while saying, “I’m gonna kill ... Anyway I’m done. Total war. You want it, you got it.”
In Thursday’s decision, Connecticut Chief Justice Richard Robinson wrote, “We recognize that there is a place for strong advocacy in litigation, but language evoking threats of physical harm is not tolerable.”
Pattis, who withdrew as Jones’ attorney without explanation in May, said Thursday that he could no longer speak on behalf of Jones.
“Personally, I’m disappointed by the Supreme Court’s lackluster commitment to the first amendment,” Pattis said in an email to The Associated Press. “I hope Mr. Jones seeks U.S. Supreme Court review.”
An email message seeking comment was sent to Jones and Infowars on Thursday.
Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer for the families, said in a statement that the ruling was a win for the integrity of the court system.
“As other branches of government show signs of cracking under the weight of threats and falsehoods, this ruling reminds us that the courtroom is still a sacred place that remains dedicated to the truth, to precedent and to long-established rules created over centuries,” he said.
Sandy Hook families sued Jones and others in several states for defamation related to the hoax conspiracy.
Last year in one of the lawsuits, a Texas judge ordered Jones to pay $100,000 in legal fees and refused to dismiss the suit. And a jury in Wisconsin awarded $450,000 to one of the parents in his lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers, not including Jones, who claimed the massacre never happened.
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Court hears Alex Jones' appeal in Sandy Hook case
by Dave Collins
September 26, 2019
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should not have been penalized for an angry outburst on his Infowars web show against an attorney for relatives of some of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, Jones' lawyer told the Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday.
Lawyer Norman Pattis told the justices Jones was exercising his free speech rights during the tirade in June against attorney Christopher Mattei, one of the lawyers representing the families in a defamation lawsuit against Jones, Infowars and others for calling the school shooting a hoax.
A lower court judge cited the outburst when she sanctioned Jones by barring him from filing a motion to dismiss the families' lawsuit, which has also included contentious proceedings over Jones' delays in turning over documents to the relatives. Jones appealed the penalty to the Supreme Court, which did not issue a ruling Thursday.
The sanction came after Jones, on Infowars, accused Mattei of planting child pornography that was found in email metadata files that Jones turned over to the Sandy Hook families' lawyers. Pattis said the pornography was in emails sent to Jones that were never opened.
"You're trying to set me up with child porn," Jones said on the show. "One million dollars, you little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike."
Jones mentioned Mattei by name and pounded on a picture of Mattei while saying, "I'm gonna kill ... Anyway I'm done. Total war. You want it, you got it."
Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families suing Jones, said there were safety concerns after Jones' comments.
"What happens if that call for action, that call for a head on pike, goes out to 10 million-plus people that the person on the other side of that threat does not know anything about?" Koskoff asked the seven justices. "There's clearly defamation. There's elements of incitement. And there's definitely true threat."
Pattis said Jones, who was not at Thursday's arguments, had good reason to be upset about the child porn, but his comments were not true threats and were protected by First Amendment free speech rights.
"From our perspective, Mr. Jones had every right to offer a million dollar reward to find out who did this," Pattis said. "He had every right to express rage."
Outside the Supreme Court with parents of some of the school shooting victims standing behind him, Mattei said Jones' comments prompted him and the law firm to take precautions.
"I was a federal prosecutor for eight years so I've dealt with threats before," Mattei said. "Whatever we've had to deal with ... pales in comparison to the abuse that he unleashed to the people standing behind me over a period of years."
Relatives who attended the hearing declined to comment.
The families of eight victims of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and an FBI agent who responded to the massacre are suing Jones, Infowars and others for promoting a theory that the shooting was a hoax. A 20-year-old gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself at the school, after having killed his mother at their Newtown home.
The families said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones' followers because of the hoax conspiracy.
Jones has since said he believes the shooting occurred.
************************
Lawyers for Sandy Hook victims allege threats from Alex Jones during tirade over child pornography
by Dave Altimari
Hartford Courant
Jun 17, 2019 at 7:09 pm
During his Infowars internet radio show last Friday, lawyers for Sandy Hook families who are suing Alex Jones say the controversial radio host threatened one of them when he discussed the presence of child pornography in emails from his program’s computer server.
A Superior Court judge will hold an emergency hearing Tuesday in Bridgeport on the alleged threat. Jones appeared to threaten Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, when he announced a $1 million reward for any information and then the conviction of the person who he said planted pornography on his company’s webserver.
Late Monday, Norm Pattis, Jones’s attorney, filed a motion asking Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis to issue a stay in the case while an investigation is done into whether Pattis can no longer represent Jones because of a possible conflict of interest.
“The plaintiffs allegations have raised serious issues concerning conflicts of interests in this case between the Jones defendants and undersigned counsel,” Pattis wrote, adding an investigation must be conducted into whether he can no longer represent Jones.
Pattis said he has already begun one internally. The motion doesn’t say whether he expects Bellis to order an independent one.
The FBI has been investigating child porn sent to Jones after lawyers for the Sandy Hook families found images turned over to them in connection with their lawsuit against Jones.
“Out of hundreds of thousands of emails they got, and they know just where to go. What a nice group of Democrats. How surprising. What nice people. Chris Mattei. Chris Mattei,” Jones said, pounding a picture of Mattei with his fist. "Let’s zoom in on Chris Mattei. Oh, nice little Chris Mattei. What a good American. What a good boy. You think you’ll put on me, what ... I’m gonna kill ... Anyway, I’m done! Total war! You want it, you got it!” Jones said on his show.
On Monday, lawyers from Koskoff, Koskoff & Beider asked Bellis to hold an emergency hearing on Jones’s threats, saying “the court has an obligation to protect the attorneys, parties, and the judicial process.”
Jones is being sued by several victims of the Sandy Hook school massacre. They are alleging he and his company have profited from spreading the story that the shooting was a hoax. He has hired Connecticut lawyer Norm Pattis to represent him after Judge Barbara Bellis grew frustrated that Jones and Infowars weren’t complying with simple discovery requests and threatened to sanction Jones.
The plaintiffs include the parents of four children killed at the Newtown school: Jacqueline and Mark Barden, parents of Daniel; Nicole and Ian Hockley, parents of Dylan; Francine and David Wheeler, parents of Ben; and Jennifer Hensel and Jeremy Richman, parents of Avielle Richman. Other plaintiffs are relatives of slain first-grade teacher Victoria Leigh Soto; Erica Lafferty-Garbatini, daughter of slain Principal Dawn Hochsprung; and William Aldenberg, a longtime FBI agent and a first responder.
The lawsuit accuses Jones of orchestrating a sustained attack that lasted for years, accusing family members of being actors, stating as fact that the shooting was a hoax and inciting others to act on those claims all because it was good for his ratings, drew advertisers and made him money.
The lawyers have been fighting about access to Jones data regarding marketing and other metrics for the show. The families allege that Jones profited off of claiming the shooting was a hoax. Jones has since publicly said he believes that the Sandy Hook School shooting did happen.
Adam Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 first graders after he shot his way into the school on Dec. 14, 2012.
The Jones group turned over millions of emails without vetting them. Some of those contained child pornography.
“The plaintiffs’ Electronically Stored Information (ESI) consultants began loading files into a document review database in an effort to make them reviewable by counsel as quickly as possible. During that process, the consultants identified an image that appeared to be child pornography,” William Bloss, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, wrote.
“They immediately contacted counsel, who immediately contacted the FBI. The FBI directed counsel to give control of the entire document production to the FBI, which was done. The FBI advised counsel that its review located numerous additional illegal images, which had apparently been sent to Infowars email addresses,” Bloss said.
Bloss added if the Jones defendants had engaged in even minimal due diligence and actually reviewed the materials before production, they would have found the images themselves.
Pattis appeared on Jones’ show late Friday afternoon to discuss the incident. Pattis said the FBI has informed him and Jones that they know the child pornography was sent to them by unknown parties. But before he did Jones went on a five-minute, profanity-laced rant about “someone setting him up” and then announced the reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of whoever infiltrated the his company’s servers.
“These were emails that if you, me or one of your workers had opened we would have been subjected to five years in federal prison,” Pattis said.
Copyright © 2022, Hartford Courant
************************
Alex Jones Unveils Strategy Of Calling Plaintiffs' Counsel A 'Little White Jewboy Jerkoff Son Of A Bitch': Yeah, how do you think it went?
by Liz Dye
Above The Law
June 20, 2019 at 10:43 AM
Are you tired of forking over tens of thousands of dollars to your attorneys for expensive document review? Never fear, because legendary investigative journalist Alex Jones has discovered the ONE WEIRD TRICK THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW to save money on expensive discovery. No, it’s not trucker speed or whatever’s in those supplements he’s hawking on YouTube Facebook Twitter his own Infowars website. It’s dumping the entire contents of your email server on the plaintiffs without bothering to review it first. Just pay shipping and handling, and they’ll throw in a two-pack of Super Male Vitality absolutely free!
Jones, who repeatedly called the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre a “false flag” operation, is being sued in Texas and Connecticut by parents he accused of faking their own children’s death. Plaintiffs demanded email metadata as part of discovery, and Jones’s attorneys produced it in a massive document dump on May 21.
Knowingly receiving or transmitting child pornography is a federal crime, so naturally the discovery consultants flipped their sh*t when they found an illicit image in an email attachment. Plaintiffs’ lawyers called the FBI, as mandated by federal law, and the feds discovered “numerous additional illegal images, which had apparently been sent to Infowars email addresses.” There’s no implication that anyone at Infowars solicited the illegal images, nor is there any implication that Jones’s counsel “engaged in even minimal due diligence and actually reviewed the materials before production.” AHEM.
Why Jones’s attorneys failed to review their client’s emails before handing them over is anyone’s guess. Why they allowed him to discuss the pending litigation on his Infowars broadcast last week is similarly mysterious. But his attorney Norman Pattis’s decision to join him on the show is … well, that one really is quite a headscratcher!
After Jones offered a million-dollar reward for the arrest and conviction of the person who sent him the illegal images while intimating that it was mighty coincidental that the plaintiffs’ lawyers found the images and reported them to the FBI — “And they get these emails a few weeks ago, and they go right to the FBI and say, ‘We’ve got him with child porn!'” — he went on to explain why he couldn’t possibly have knowingly possessed child pornography.
Pattis babbled some nonsense about Aristotle’s theories of anger management as his client pounded his fist on a picture of plaintiff’s counsel Chris Mattei, screaming, “We all know who did it,” and threatening, “One million dollars to put your head on a pike.”
Anyways, he went on to refer to Chris Mattei as “a white Jewboy that thinks he owns America” and “a little, white Jewboy jerkoff son of a bitch.”
A different lawyer, Zachary Reyland, defended Jones yesterday in front of Bridgeport Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis, who was not amused, calling the broadcast “indefensible, unconscionable, despicable, and possibly criminal behavior.”
Her Honor was similarly impressed with his attorneys’ objection to complying with a discovery order to produce Infowars’s Google Analytics data because “they don’t possess the data themselves, and they should not have to get it from Google because Google holds Alex Jones in contempt.”
Then she barred his motion to dismiss and forced him to pay court costs and fees for the time he wasted making false implications about plaintiffs’ counsel. Which is a less terrible result than last week when Jones lost a copyright suit filed by Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie and was forced to pay $15,000 in damages.
The Connecticut case is scheduled for trial in November 2020. Keep buying that Infowars Myco-ZX with “wildcrafted ingredients” to “address” your “intestinal yeast,” and also to make sure Alex Jones can continue his excellent legal defense.
by Dave Collins
AP News
July 23, 2020 GMT
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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a sanction against Infowars host Alex Jones over an angry outburst on his web show against an attorney for relatives of some of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, who are suing him for defamation.
The court issued a 7-0 decision rejecting Jones’ claims that his comments aimed at attorney Christopher Mattei were protected by free speech rights, and upholding a lower court’s ruling that Jones violated numerous orders to turn over documents to the families’ lawyers.
The lower court judge barred Jones from filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, as a penalty for his actions.
The families of eight victims of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and an FBI agent who responded to the massacre are suing Jones, Infowars and others for promoting a theory that the shooting was a hoax. A 20-year-old gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself at the school, after having killed his mother at their Newtown home.
The families said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones’ followers because of the hoax conspiracy.
Jones, whose show is based in Austin, Texas, has since said he believes the shooting occurred.
The sanction came after Jones, on Infowars last year, accused Mattei of planting child pornography that was found in email metadata files that Jones turned over to the Sandy Hook families’ lawyers. Jones’ former lawyer, Norman Pattis, who argued the case before the state Supreme Court, has said the pornography was in emails sent to Jones that were never opened.
“You’re trying to set me up with child porn,” Jones said on the show. “One million dollars, you little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike.”
Jones mentioned Mattei by name and pounded on a picture of Mattei while saying, “I’m gonna kill ... Anyway I’m done. Total war. You want it, you got it.”
In Thursday’s decision, Connecticut Chief Justice Richard Robinson wrote, “We recognize that there is a place for strong advocacy in litigation, but language evoking threats of physical harm is not tolerable.”
Pattis, who withdrew as Jones’ attorney without explanation in May, said Thursday that he could no longer speak on behalf of Jones.
“Personally, I’m disappointed by the Supreme Court’s lackluster commitment to the first amendment,” Pattis said in an email to The Associated Press. “I hope Mr. Jones seeks U.S. Supreme Court review.”
An email message seeking comment was sent to Jones and Infowars on Thursday.
Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer for the families, said in a statement that the ruling was a win for the integrity of the court system.
“As other branches of government show signs of cracking under the weight of threats and falsehoods, this ruling reminds us that the courtroom is still a sacred place that remains dedicated to the truth, to precedent and to long-established rules created over centuries,” he said.
Sandy Hook families sued Jones and others in several states for defamation related to the hoax conspiracy.
Last year in one of the lawsuits, a Texas judge ordered Jones to pay $100,000 in legal fees and refused to dismiss the suit. And a jury in Wisconsin awarded $450,000 to one of the parents in his lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers, not including Jones, who claimed the massacre never happened.
*******************
Court hears Alex Jones' appeal in Sandy Hook case
by Dave Collins
September 26, 2019
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should not have been penalized for an angry outburst on his Infowars web show against an attorney for relatives of some of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, Jones' lawyer told the Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday.
Lawyer Norman Pattis told the justices Jones was exercising his free speech rights during the tirade in June against attorney Christopher Mattei, one of the lawyers representing the families in a defamation lawsuit against Jones, Infowars and others for calling the school shooting a hoax.
A lower court judge cited the outburst when she sanctioned Jones by barring him from filing a motion to dismiss the families' lawsuit, which has also included contentious proceedings over Jones' delays in turning over documents to the relatives. Jones appealed the penalty to the Supreme Court, which did not issue a ruling Thursday.
The sanction came after Jones, on Infowars, accused Mattei of planting child pornography that was found in email metadata files that Jones turned over to the Sandy Hook families' lawyers. Pattis said the pornography was in emails sent to Jones that were never opened.
"You're trying to set me up with child porn," Jones said on the show. "One million dollars, you little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike."
Jones mentioned Mattei by name and pounded on a picture of Mattei while saying, "I'm gonna kill ... Anyway I'm done. Total war. You want it, you got it."
Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families suing Jones, said there were safety concerns after Jones' comments.
"What happens if that call for action, that call for a head on pike, goes out to 10 million-plus people that the person on the other side of that threat does not know anything about?" Koskoff asked the seven justices. "There's clearly defamation. There's elements of incitement. And there's definitely true threat."
Pattis said Jones, who was not at Thursday's arguments, had good reason to be upset about the child porn, but his comments were not true threats and were protected by First Amendment free speech rights.
"From our perspective, Mr. Jones had every right to offer a million dollar reward to find out who did this," Pattis said. "He had every right to express rage."
Outside the Supreme Court with parents of some of the school shooting victims standing behind him, Mattei said Jones' comments prompted him and the law firm to take precautions.
"I was a federal prosecutor for eight years so I've dealt with threats before," Mattei said. "Whatever we've had to deal with ... pales in comparison to the abuse that he unleashed to the people standing behind me over a period of years."
Relatives who attended the hearing declined to comment.
The families of eight victims of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and an FBI agent who responded to the massacre are suing Jones, Infowars and others for promoting a theory that the shooting was a hoax. A 20-year-old gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself at the school, after having killed his mother at their Newtown home.
The families said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones' followers because of the hoax conspiracy.
Jones has since said he believes the shooting occurred.
************************
Lawyers for Sandy Hook victims allege threats from Alex Jones during tirade over child pornography
by Dave Altimari
Hartford Courant
Jun 17, 2019 at 7:09 pm
During his Infowars internet radio show last Friday, lawyers for Sandy Hook families who are suing Alex Jones say the controversial radio host threatened one of them when he discussed the presence of child pornography in emails from his program’s computer server.
A Superior Court judge will hold an emergency hearing Tuesday in Bridgeport on the alleged threat. Jones appeared to threaten Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, when he announced a $1 million reward for any information and then the conviction of the person who he said planted pornography on his company’s webserver.
Late Monday, Norm Pattis, Jones’s attorney, filed a motion asking Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis to issue a stay in the case while an investigation is done into whether Pattis can no longer represent Jones because of a possible conflict of interest.
“The plaintiffs allegations have raised serious issues concerning conflicts of interests in this case between the Jones defendants and undersigned counsel,” Pattis wrote, adding an investigation must be conducted into whether he can no longer represent Jones.
Pattis said he has already begun one internally. The motion doesn’t say whether he expects Bellis to order an independent one.
The FBI has been investigating child porn sent to Jones after lawyers for the Sandy Hook families found images turned over to them in connection with their lawsuit against Jones.
“Out of hundreds of thousands of emails they got, and they know just where to go. What a nice group of Democrats. How surprising. What nice people. Chris Mattei. Chris Mattei,” Jones said, pounding a picture of Mattei with his fist. "Let’s zoom in on Chris Mattei. Oh, nice little Chris Mattei. What a good American. What a good boy. You think you’ll put on me, what ... I’m gonna kill ... Anyway, I’m done! Total war! You want it, you got it!” Jones said on his show.
On Monday, lawyers from Koskoff, Koskoff & Beider asked Bellis to hold an emergency hearing on Jones’s threats, saying “the court has an obligation to protect the attorneys, parties, and the judicial process.”
Jones is being sued by several victims of the Sandy Hook school massacre. They are alleging he and his company have profited from spreading the story that the shooting was a hoax. He has hired Connecticut lawyer Norm Pattis to represent him after Judge Barbara Bellis grew frustrated that Jones and Infowars weren’t complying with simple discovery requests and threatened to sanction Jones.
The plaintiffs include the parents of four children killed at the Newtown school: Jacqueline and Mark Barden, parents of Daniel; Nicole and Ian Hockley, parents of Dylan; Francine and David Wheeler, parents of Ben; and Jennifer Hensel and Jeremy Richman, parents of Avielle Richman. Other plaintiffs are relatives of slain first-grade teacher Victoria Leigh Soto; Erica Lafferty-Garbatini, daughter of slain Principal Dawn Hochsprung; and William Aldenberg, a longtime FBI agent and a first responder.
The lawsuit accuses Jones of orchestrating a sustained attack that lasted for years, accusing family members of being actors, stating as fact that the shooting was a hoax and inciting others to act on those claims all because it was good for his ratings, drew advertisers and made him money.
The lawyers have been fighting about access to Jones data regarding marketing and other metrics for the show. The families allege that Jones profited off of claiming the shooting was a hoax. Jones has since publicly said he believes that the Sandy Hook School shooting did happen.
Adam Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 first graders after he shot his way into the school on Dec. 14, 2012.
The Jones group turned over millions of emails without vetting them. Some of those contained child pornography.
“The plaintiffs’ Electronically Stored Information (ESI) consultants began loading files into a document review database in an effort to make them reviewable by counsel as quickly as possible. During that process, the consultants identified an image that appeared to be child pornography,” William Bloss, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, wrote.
“They immediately contacted counsel, who immediately contacted the FBI. The FBI directed counsel to give control of the entire document production to the FBI, which was done. The FBI advised counsel that its review located numerous additional illegal images, which had apparently been sent to Infowars email addresses,” Bloss said.
Bloss added if the Jones defendants had engaged in even minimal due diligence and actually reviewed the materials before production, they would have found the images themselves.
Pattis appeared on Jones’ show late Friday afternoon to discuss the incident. Pattis said the FBI has informed him and Jones that they know the child pornography was sent to them by unknown parties. But before he did Jones went on a five-minute, profanity-laced rant about “someone setting him up” and then announced the reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of whoever infiltrated the his company’s servers.
“These were emails that if you, me or one of your workers had opened we would have been subjected to five years in federal prison,” Pattis said.
Copyright © 2022, Hartford Courant
************************
Alex Jones Unveils Strategy Of Calling Plaintiffs' Counsel A 'Little White Jewboy Jerkoff Son Of A Bitch': Yeah, how do you think it went?
by Liz Dye
Above The Law
June 20, 2019 at 10:43 AM
Are you tired of forking over tens of thousands of dollars to your attorneys for expensive document review? Never fear, because legendary investigative journalist Alex Jones has discovered the ONE WEIRD TRICK THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW to save money on expensive discovery. No, it’s not trucker speed or whatever’s in those supplements he’s hawking on YouTube Facebook Twitter his own Infowars website. It’s dumping the entire contents of your email server on the plaintiffs without bothering to review it first. Just pay shipping and handling, and they’ll throw in a two-pack of Super Male Vitality absolutely free!
Jones, who repeatedly called the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre a “false flag” operation, is being sued in Texas and Connecticut by parents he accused of faking their own children’s death. Plaintiffs demanded email metadata as part of discovery, and Jones’s attorneys produced it in a massive document dump on May 21.
Knowingly receiving or transmitting child pornography is a federal crime, so naturally the discovery consultants flipped their sh*t when they found an illicit image in an email attachment. Plaintiffs’ lawyers called the FBI, as mandated by federal law, and the feds discovered “numerous additional illegal images, which had apparently been sent to Infowars email addresses.” There’s no implication that anyone at Infowars solicited the illegal images, nor is there any implication that Jones’s counsel “engaged in even minimal due diligence and actually reviewed the materials before production.” AHEM.
Why Jones’s attorneys failed to review their client’s emails before handing them over is anyone’s guess. Why they allowed him to discuss the pending litigation on his Infowars broadcast last week is similarly mysterious. But his attorney Norman Pattis’s decision to join him on the show is … well, that one really is quite a headscratcher!
After Jones offered a million-dollar reward for the arrest and conviction of the person who sent him the illegal images while intimating that it was mighty coincidental that the plaintiffs’ lawyers found the images and reported them to the FBI — “And they get these emails a few weeks ago, and they go right to the FBI and say, ‘We’ve got him with child porn!'” — he went on to explain why he couldn’t possibly have knowingly possessed child pornography.
I like women with big giant tits and big asses. I don’t like kids like you goddamn rapists. F-heads. In fact, delete this: You f**ks are going to get it. You f**king child molesters. I’ll f**king get you in the end. You f**ks.
I like women with big giant tits and big asses. I don’t like kids like you goddamn rapists. Eff-heads. In fact, delete this: You f**** are going to get it. You f****** child molesters. I’ll f****** get you in the end. You f****. No, we’re done right there. You know what, I should have deleted it on radio. Probably still went out. I don’t care. You’re trying to set me up with child porn, I’ll get your ass. One million dollars, One million dollars. You little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike. One million dollars, bitch.
I’m going to get your ass, you understand me now? You’re not going to ever defeat Texas, you sacks of shit, so you get ready for that.
So you get ready for that. Now I don't usually use French, but I'm pissed right now. Norm Pattis, you take over the segment. I apologize for my use of French here. But I'm really pissed right now. I'm not going to put up with this goddamn bullshit anymore.
Pattis babbled some nonsense about Aristotle’s theories of anger management as his client pounded his fist on a picture of plaintiff’s counsel Chris Mattei, screaming, “We all know who did it,” and threatening, “One million dollars to put your head on a pike.”
And then now magically they want metadata out of hundreds of thousands of emails they got, and they know just where to go. What a nice group of Democrats. How surprising. What nice people. Chris Mattei. Chris Mattei. Let’s zoom in on Chris Mattei. Oh, nice little—[pounds picture of Attorney Mattei’s face with fist]—Chris Mattei. What a good American. What a good boy. You think you’ll put on me, what—[under his breath] I’m gonna kill . . . [growls]. Anyway, I’m done! Total war! You want it, you got it! I’m not into kids like your Democratic party, you cocksuckers! So get ready!
Anyways, you’re my defense lawyer.
Norm Pattis: ...
I want to focus on the issue that got you angry because that's a great issue. Okay. And Aristotle once said that a wise men gets angry in the right way at the right time. And the right reason. You're so angry right now, you're just a touch unwise. But I'm still behind you 100% You should be angry. Because here's what happened.
Anyways, he went on to refer to Chris Mattei as “a white Jewboy that thinks he owns America” and “a little, white Jewboy jerkoff son of a bitch.”
Norm Pattis: Chris Mattei is your adversary in this litigation, just as I am the adversary of the people that have sued you and it is my responsibility to take their case apart if I can, and he will attack you.
Alex Jones: White shoe boy that thinks he owns America.
Norm Pattis: I'm not going to engage in a personal attack on Chris Mattei. I want to find out who sent the emails to you, and when I find that person, then I will go to war. I just ...
Alex Jones: You understand, hitting the links in an email no one looked at is like finding a needle in 5000 haystacks....
Alex Jones: Why do they want the metadata? So they want to plant something on me. So I told you that three weeks ago, and now they're ...
Norm Pattis: Hey, look, you are dead right. When I came down here, you know, I didn't know who you were. I knew who you were, I could place you on the political landscape. I hadn't watched your show. I've made a study of you in the last three or four months and you've won me over because I think you're an honest and angry American. But sometimes you're not angry at the right things and sometimes you get angry too quickly. And sometimes you get angry at the wrong thing.
Alex Jones: Let people try to plant child porn on your computer man.
Norm Pattis: I might find out who did it and then take them down, but not ...
Alex Jones: That's why I said $1 million. I'm not BS-ing. $1 million when they're convicted. The bounties out, bitches, and you know your Feds, they're gonna know you did it. They're gonna get your ass you little dirtbag. $1 million, bitch. It's out on yo' ass.
Norm Pattis: Well, if they're the grass, I will be your lawn mower. But let's make sure we're mowing the right lawn. Okay, I you have
Alex Jones: $1 million is on the street
We're going to get the emails. we're going to publish them next week. We're going to make a whole thing, we're not going to show the child porn, but we're going to put the emails out and we're going to show you where they came from and $1 million on the street.
Norm Pattis: And where I come from what's truly terrifying is this is the botto- feeding part of the effort to take you down. You've been de-platformed.
Alex Jones: Well now a million dollars is on offer after 'em. So sleep real good tonight, little jerk, because your own buddies are going to turn you in and you're going to go to prison. You little white shoe boy, jerk-off, son-of-a- bitch. I can't handle them anymore, I am sick of these people, bunch of chicken crap taking this country over. They want to attack real Americans.
Norm Pattis: Well be the real American and the real Americans attacks the right target. Let's find that target and...
Alex Jones: Oh my God. I know there's no way out of millions of emails that didn't even say child porn, they horned in on it. God almighty.
Norm Pattis: You're assuming they horned in on it. Ee don't know...
Alex Jones: Then whoever did it, told them to do it. We're gonna, yeah. $1 million! $1 million is on the street against you. You didn't destroy America on time, bitch.
I am pissed. man. I will give everything I have to stop living in this world with these people. Oh look Norm. We have Google Analytics to ask for how much do we cover Sandy Hook? Let's roll some of that. This is from Google — 0.28%. That's how much Google says we covered it. Boy, how does that fit into their model that I live off the dead kids which these vampires feed off of, not me.
Norm Pattis: You will win the lawsuit in Sandy Hook as a matter of law. It was protected speech and not defamatory and it was and ...
Alex Jones: And they know that so they put child porn on my servers.
Norm Pattis: That may well be the plan that some as yet unidentified person engaged in and we have to identify that person. It's easy to make an accusation, hard to prove it.
Alex Jones: I'm sure US attorneys appointed by Obama are sweet little cupcakes. I would never accuse them.
Norm Pattis: I didn't come on your show to be made out to look like a naive fool. I'm as tough as any lawyer you'll ever find.
Alex Jones: I'm not saying you're naive. You don't think errand boy did this. I'm actually not saying that. This is a setup ...
I've never screwed a kid. I don't want to screw a kid. Don't you ever project onto me? Don't you ever do it, you low lifes.
And so if they want war, you know, It's not a threat. It's just like an AC/DC song. If you want blood, you got blood on the streets, man. I mean, I am not gonna sit here in my life and have these dirtbags say that I've done these things I haven't done, and know where to go and weasel in and find this perfect thing. It's ridiculous how obvious it is.
Do you think I'd roll over and spray crap out my ass and show my belly and piss on myself and bow down to you? You just summoned war. So get ready.
And I'm just asking the Pentagon and the patriots that are left and 4Chan and 8Chan and Anonymous and anybody that's a patriot. I am under attack. And if they bring me down, they'll bring you down. I just have faith in you. I'm under attack. And I summon the meme war, I summon it all against the enemy. I will never sell out to these people.
Anyways, want to say some closing comments?
Norm Pattis: Hi mom.
No Alex, I can't respond to the rage. I get it.
Alex Jones: How would you like this? How would you like an Obama appointed US Attorney man that literally found a needle in a field of haystacks and tried to go to the Feds and get me indicted. It's war dude.
Killing me would be better. Turning me into a child molester, into your liberal God. I'll never be a sack of filth like you.
And now I ask listeners and everyone. You claim that I said people. I never said anybody. I want legal and lawful action. But I pray to God that America awakens
Will Texas be defeated? You will now decide.
A different lawyer, Zachary Reyland, defended Jones yesterday in front of Bridgeport Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis, who was not amused, calling the broadcast “indefensible, unconscionable, despicable, and possibly criminal behavior.”
The court has no doubt that Alex Jones was accusing plaintiffs’ counsel of placing child pornography in discovery material. […] I reject the defense claim that Alex Jones was enraged, it was an intentional act of rage for his viewing audience.
Her Honor was similarly impressed with his attorneys’ objection to complying with a discovery order to produce Infowars’s Google Analytics data because “they don’t possess the data themselves, and they should not have to get it from Google because Google holds Alex Jones in contempt.”
Then she barred his motion to dismiss and forced him to pay court costs and fees for the time he wasted making false implications about plaintiffs’ counsel. Which is a less terrible result than last week when Jones lost a copyright suit filed by Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie and was forced to pay $15,000 in damages.
The Connecticut case is scheduled for trial in November 2020. Keep buying that Infowars Myco-ZX with “wildcrafted ingredients” to “address” your “intestinal yeast,” and also to make sure Alex Jones can continue his excellent legal defense.
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Re: Alex Jones Trial: Witnesses Describe Conspiracy Theories
by admin » Mon Sep 19, 2022 12:48 am
`I summon the meme war,' says Alex Jones, as Sandy Hook case grows uglier
by Jonathan Tilove jtilove@statesman.com
Austin American-Statesman
June 18, 2019
[x]
Alex Jones went on a tirade on InfoWars on Friday.
Good day Austin:
Alex Jones generated some headlines in the last 24 hours that, while technically accurate, left what I think is a wholly misleading and unfair impression.
From the Connecticut Post:
From the New York Times:
I realize this is a very tough story to write a fair headline on. (You'll see I had to dodge the point in writing my headline.)
But, I think that the headlines at the top as written allow that vast readership predisposed to detest Jones to jump to their desired conclusion without even having to read the story.
Here, as best I can put it together, is what happened.
As part of discovery in the case, Jones, who is also being sued by Sandy Hook parents in cases in Jones' hometown of Austin, produced a trove of some 57,000 emails which it sent to Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, the plaintiff's attorneys in Connecticut, who determined that that among the emails was one with a never-opened attachment of child pornography. Jones and his attorney said they and others at InfoWars were not aware of the child porn attachment until notified by the plaintiff's attorneys, who turned the emails over to the FBI, which found a dozen emails with like content.
From a motion filed by the plaintiff's attorney in Superior Court in Waterbury, Connecticut, on Monday:
According to Jones' lawyer, Norm Pattis, the FBI has told him that it considers Jones a victim of what were malicious emails that were sent to InfoWars.
(From his website: "Norm Pattis, one of America’s most controversial and successful trial lawyers, represents people who face powerful foes. His relentless voice and legal acumen level the playing field for individuals against prosecutors in serious criminal cases, opponents in high-conflict high-stakes civil disputes, victims of corporate malfeasance, and other people who face the loss of liberty or property. A veteran of well over 150 jury trials and scores of appeals resulting in acquittals for people charged with major felonies and multi-million dollar civil rights jury verdicts, attorney Pattis is found most days in the courts across Connecticut or New York’s and Washington, DC’s federal courts.)
On Friday's InfoWars, Jones, with Pattis by his side, addressed the matter, beginning just before the 2-hour-15-minute mark, and building into an extraordinary tirade, even by Jones' standards, in which he accused Mattei, in obscene and menacing fashion, of setting him up with the child porn emails, even as Pattis worked mightily to channel Jones' anger in a more rational direction while still being empathetic with his client's outrage.
Jones' on-air threats are the subject of a motion that the plaintiff's attorneys have asked be taken up at a previously scheduled hearing on the case at noon today:
From the motion:
In the annals of Alex Jones moments, this extended exchange, with Pattis' simultaneously supportive, critical and analytical participation, is stunning, which is why I am bringing you a transcript of it here.
By way of brief preface, as we join the conversation, Jones is explaining that, according to Google Analytics, only something like 0.2% of the views of his show were of Sandy Hook content, his point being that it wasn't the obsession for him that people now think it is, or was.
Returning to the transcript:
The next day, Jones was back on the air with Pattis and apologized. He said he didn't mean to accuse Chris Mattei of setting him up.
In fact, and in very typical Jones fashion, as the apology rolled on Saturday, and again on Monday's show, he denied he had ever implicated Mattei.
And he said that, on Pattis' advice, he had withdrawn the million dollar bounty, because it was unwise to offer money for a conviction that might lead someone to give tainted testimony.
On Monday's show, Pattis, appearing remotely on the show, said to Jones:
But, late Monday afternoon, after the show, Pattis filed his own motion with the court, arguing ahead of today's hearing in the case, for a stay of all proceedings:
What does all that mean?
I have no idea.
by Jonathan Tilove jtilove@statesman.com
Austin American-Statesman
June 18, 2019
[x]
Alex Jones went on a tirade on InfoWars on Friday.
Good day Austin:
Alex Jones generated some headlines in the last 24 hours that, while technically accurate, left what I think is a wholly misleading and unfair impression.
From the Connecticut Post:
Lawyers for Sandy Hook families say Alex Jones sent them child porn
BRIDGEPORT — Conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host Alex Jones sent child pornography to the lawyers for the families of the Sandy Hook tragedy, their lawyers said.
The law firm representing the families of the 2012 mass shooting stated in court documents filed Monday they have contacted the FBI after discovering child porn in electronic files Jones recently turned over to the Sandy Hook families as a result of their lawsuit against him for calling the tragedy a hoax.
Jones publicly responded on a broadcast of his show that he is being framed by Chris Mattei, the lawyer for the Sandy Hook families and went on making what Mattei and his law firm, Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder claim are threats against them.
From the New York Times:
Alex Jones’s Legal Team Is Said to Have Sent Child Porn in Sandy Hook Hoax Case
Lawyers for families of victims in the 2012 shooting said the legal team acting for Mr. Jones, the conspiracy theorist, sent them child pornography, adding that they have notified the F.B.I.
Lawyers representing several families of victims of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School said in court documents that the legal team acting for Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and host of the Infowars website, sent them child pornography, which they reported to the F.B.I.
The families have filed a defamation suit against Mr. Jones, who has spread the false claim that the shooting in Newtown, Conn., was an intricate hoax.
In a filing on Monday in a Connecticut court, lawyers for the families said consultants reviewing documents submitted by Mr. Jones’s lawyers as part of the suit had found an image that “appeared to be child pornography.”
Mr. Jones learned about the accusation earlier as part of the discovery process. On his show on Friday he forcefully denied any involvement in the material in question being sent and accused Chris Mattei, one of the lawyers representing the Sandy Hook families, of trying to frame him.
I realize this is a very tough story to write a fair headline on. (You'll see I had to dodge the point in writing my headline.)
But, I think that the headlines at the top as written allow that vast readership predisposed to detest Jones to jump to their desired conclusion without even having to read the story.
Here, as best I can put it together, is what happened.
As part of discovery in the case, Jones, who is also being sued by Sandy Hook parents in cases in Jones' hometown of Austin, produced a trove of some 57,000 emails which it sent to Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, the plaintiff's attorneys in Connecticut, who determined that that among the emails was one with a never-opened attachment of child pornography. Jones and his attorney said they and others at InfoWars were not aware of the child porn attachment until notified by the plaintiff's attorneys, who turned the emails over to the FBI, which found a dozen emails with like content.
From a motion filed by the plaintiff's attorney in Superior Court in Waterbury, Connecticut, on Monday:
They (InfoWars) produced a massive volume of documents, indicating that many were non-responsive, but they said that they did not have time to cull the non-responsive documents. The plaintiffs’ Electronically Stored Information (ESI) consultants began loading files into a document review database in an effort to make them reviewable by counsel as quickly as possible. During that process, the consultants identified an image that appeared to be child pornography. They immediately contacted counsel, who immediately contacted the FBI. The FBI directed counsel to give control of the entire document production to the FBI, which was done. The FBI advised counsel that its review located numerous additional illegal images, which had apparently been sent to Infowars email addresses. When the FBI indicated it had completed its review, plaintiffs’ counsel advised Attorney Pattis of the matter and arranged a joint telephone call with the United States Attorney’s Office. It is worth noting that if the Jones Defendants had engaged in even minimal due diligence and actually reviewed the materials before production, they would have found the images themselves. Because the Jones Defendants did not do that, they transmitted images to the plaintiffs that if they were knowingly possessed is a serious federal crime. The Jones Defendants put plaintiffs’ counsel and ESI consultants in the appalling position of discovering the first image. Plaintiffs’ ESI consultants then acted exactly as they were compelled to under federal law once they discovered the contraband images; so did plaintiffs’ counsel. But this appears not to have been good enough for Jones.
According to Jones' lawyer, Norm Pattis, the FBI has told him that it considers Jones a victim of what were malicious emails that were sent to InfoWars.
(From his website: "Norm Pattis, one of America’s most controversial and successful trial lawyers, represents people who face powerful foes. His relentless voice and legal acumen level the playing field for individuals against prosecutors in serious criminal cases, opponents in high-conflict high-stakes civil disputes, victims of corporate malfeasance, and other people who face the loss of liberty or property. A veteran of well over 150 jury trials and scores of appeals resulting in acquittals for people charged with major felonies and multi-million dollar civil rights jury verdicts, attorney Pattis is found most days in the courts across Connecticut or New York’s and Washington, DC’s federal courts.)
On Friday's InfoWars, Jones, with Pattis by his side, addressed the matter, beginning just before the 2-hour-15-minute mark, and building into an extraordinary tirade, even by Jones' standards, in which he accused Mattei, in obscene and menacing fashion, of setting him up with the child porn emails, even as Pattis worked mightily to channel Jones' anger in a more rational direction while still being empathetic with his client's outrage.
Jones' on-air threats are the subject of a motion that the plaintiff's attorneys have asked be taken up at a previously scheduled hearing on the case at noon today:
From the motion:
Here, threats against counsel have been made on air to a very large audience. The plaintiffs therefore request that the Court review the video in advance of tomorrow’s hearing. Plaintiffs intend to move to seek specific relief on an expedited basis, but this is an issue that the Court should be fully aware of at the earliest possible moment.
In the annals of Alex Jones moments, this extended exchange, with Pattis' simultaneously supportive, critical and analytical participation, is stunning, which is why I am bringing you a transcript of it here.
By way of brief preface, as we join the conversation, Jones is explaining that, according to Google Analytics, only something like 0.2% of the views of his show were of Sandy Hook content, his point being that it wasn't the obsession for him that people now think it is, or was.
Alex Jones: And if I believe Sandy Hook happened or didn't happen, it's my right to say it as an American. But I got tricked two years ago or three years ago, with Hillary saying, `You know, `Jones says harass the families. Jones says it didn't happen.'
It was a couple of years before I decided I thought Sandy Hook could happen.
I wasn't the guy in the first place on Sandy Hook.
I'd seen so many staged events. I mean, I think the Iranians probably attacked our ships and my listeners are pissed at me right now. And I had top-tier political analysts, naval fighter bombers on, analysts, Navy SEALS. They're saying different things.
We've had big debates. You can edit the last two days together and have us saying Iran did it, the U.S. did it, Saudi Arabia did it, because we're having real intellectual discussions about what happened.
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Alex Jones: You listeners, you know that we've never talked about Sandy Hook, in the first two, three years it happened, but a couple times.
xxxx
Megyn Kelly came here and said it was about another subject, about my divorce. It was all about Sandy Hook. And I said I think Sandy Hook happened. And you know, I've always questioned both sides, and everybody has a right. but I'm sorry for families that got hurt.
And we have the proof, it's going to come out in the courtroom against her (Megyn Kelly), that I said all that (about Sandy Hook) at the end (of the show) and they sued me on that, to get around the statute of limitations.
xxxx
98% of our statements said Sandy Hook happened. Now, if we want to say that it didn't happen, that's our right as Americans.
xxxx
But I want to be very clear. I am proud of questioning Sandy Hook.
I was not the progenitor or the daddy of it.The public questioned it. So it was the tail wagging the dog. And I questioned it. And then I looked into some of the anomalies and found out that what people said wasn't true. I found out that some of those anomalies that people talked about were not accurate.
And then I was told by the media like four years ago, apologize. And I said,`Yeah, no, I think it happened now. I'm sorry. I question things like babies in incubators ... WMD's in Iraq, the Smollett case ... I've learned why Limbaugh said never apologize. Because I never apologize, because I always believed what I was saying. But I thought, `Oh, you just want an apology. Your feelings are hurt, I'm going to apologize.'
And then the Democratic Party operatives can handle and manage all of those poor (Sandy Hook parents) and use their grief to inflict wounds on Connecticut every day — `Oh, my God, we got his ass now. He says it's all fake, it's a lie.' That Homeland show where he's the villain. I never said any of that. So now the gloves are off. And now we're going to get down to brass tacks.
So I've learned a lot through this process. But now we discovered a major criminal felony attempt to set up our operation and put us in prison. The FBI admits we're the victim.
Jones spends a little time bragging to Pattis about the millions of views of some YouTubes he did recently with Joe Rogan.
Alex Jones: And I'm not here bragging, I'm here to tell the little pimps, the (Connecticut) Sen. (Chris) Murphys and the prosecutor, the Obama-appointed prosecutor that is doing all this, `Bitch I don't need to talk about poor dead kids to pad listeners. I've got news stacked to the rafters.'
My listeners questioned 9-11 and I covered it. My listeners questioned the latest Gulf attack, which I think was probably Iran but listeners are pissed. My listeners questioned Sandy Hook and I looked at both sides. So stop saying I'm making a living off these poor children when I've been saying for years I thought they died.
Norm Pattis:I've only been involved in your case for about three months and I've grown weary listening to the claim that somehow there is a secret cabal of people meeting together deciding how to offend people and then profiting off of it driving the decision on what to cover.
Alex Jones: My listeners are pissed that I'm not saying this these attacks on ships were staged by our government. I think it was probably Iran. My point. The point is, I've got a responsibility to say what I think
Norm Pattis: You have a right to say what you think and your readers can either, your listeners can either listen or not. You have many people who listen and what their critics don't understand is you're not making people listen, you're not putting ideas in people's heads.
Since I began to represent you. I've gotten emails from angry listeners, saying, `Why are you toning him down on Sandy Hook?' I'm not toning you down. If I've learned one thing representing you in the last three months, Alex Jones does what Alex Jones wants to do. I'm not aware of some secret genie in the bottle, pulling your strings saying `move left, move right.'
There is no conspiracy at InfoWars that is seeking to profit off of the woe and misery and fear of others. This is a content-driven enterprise. You do sell products that I've seen advertised. But the relationship between the content, the editorial content, and the marketing of products — if there is a marketing effort that I've bee unable to discern — is non-existent. And I know you have spent a lot of money on me and I'm sorry, you've flown me down here at your expense.
xxxxx
We continue to go back to court in Connecticut on a weekly basis to sing for your supper. And you know, they say produce marketing reports. There aren't any. They say, produce sales analytics, there aren't any.
Alex Jones: Do you think the liberals in Connecticut that are doing this really believe the Homeland version of me?
xxxxx
Norm Pattis: The funny thing is I wish you'd be rebranded. You're not Alex Jones conspiracy theorist. I'm not sure what the right brand is. But who are the real conspiracy theorists? People seem to sit back and think that you're an evil genius who has it all planned ... and you're going to profit off of their fears. I love you. I've met a lot of great people that work here and I've enjoyed coming down here. But this is not IBM. There is not a corporate handbook telling people when to move left and move right.
You sort of represent a cyclone with a pulse and when you blow through here, I watched the bodies up against the wall trying to figure out how to peel themselves off. It works. Your viewers trust you because you're honest, you're real, you say what's on their minds. Now the biggest eye opener to me in this case has been watching videos that the plaintiffs rely on in the Sandy Hook case. I don't like Mr. (Wolfgang) Halbig (Jones' source for many Sandy Hook hoax claims). I think he's sent me any number of emails before I met you. I think the guy's a crackpot. So what do I do when I see that name Halbig? I tuned it out. There was a point where you listened to him and to defend you I've been required to watch some of those videos and it was a jaw-dropping experience because he raises good points.
Alex Jones: He's been on like national TV, like Good Morning America as the top expert ... We went off him. I think he really means what he's saying. The point is he doesn't work for us. We don't direct him.
Norm Pattis: Let me tell you a story that I have not yet heard on your network. I have good friends who are big time lawyers in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation so and they don't believe the 9-11 narrative. And so one of them got me on the phone one day and said look at your computer. And I saw an aircraft that was crashed into the Pentagon. He said that's not how it happened. Look, there's no tail on the airplane, but there's no damage to the place where the tail should have been. This was staged. Now something told me that he had about six screws loose on a five screw device. But I looked at the photo. And as a lawyer I thought, you know, if you stood in front of a jury and argued that piece, you'd get it.
But I couldn't follow exactly.
Alex Jones: But he had the right to say it.
Norm Pattis: That's exactly right.
Alex Jones: And that's what I'm saying.
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Norm Pattis: And that's the point ... People are so distrustful of the government. They're desperate for answers.
Alex Jones: And they're trying to make that questioning illegal. I have been a loyal son of the Republic, my family for more than 14 generations has been. And I know what they do when you expose them. They say you're a pedophile. We knew it was coming. And when the Obama-appointed US Attorney demanded out of 9.6 million emails, 9.6 million emails in the last seven years in Sandy Hook, metadata, which meant tracking the emails and where they went, well, we fought it in court. The judge ordered for us to release a large number of those emails. That's Chris Mattei, that got that done. Very interesting individual, the firm of Koskoff and Koskoff, run by Senator Murphy and Senator Blumenthal that say, for American to survive, quote, I must be taken off the air. They're every naked about what they stand for.
So, you know, I had them try to set me up with the Russians. And I reported to the FBI, that kind of freaked them out a lot. And that's all on record, been covered on national news. So that didn't work too well. And so we learned just last few days that when they wanted these hundreds of thousands of emails out of the 9.6 million, that they had attachments to them that no one would know what they were, we hadn't opened this, the FBI has come out and said, I'm the victim. And the statement is coming out officially, the U.S. attorney's office in Connecticut. What's interesting is we checked with real IT people, because we're not IT folks, so we made some calls. They said,`No, you wouldn't know what was in attachments. And you wouldn't know what they linked to because they have not been looked at. They said we're the victim. It was hidden in Sandy Hook emails threatening us. It was child porn.
So it's on record, .... We're not involved in child porn. But the fact is, it's not a needle in the haystack, it's fields of haystacks. And they get these emails a few weeks ago. And they go right to the FBI and say, `We've got him on child porn.' The FBI says he never opened it. And he didn't send it. And then they act like, oh, they're our friends, they're not gonna do anything with this. Go to hell. I wasn't born yesterday. I was born in the dark, but it wasn't last night.
So whatever's going on, I'm offering a $100,000 reward, not $10,00. A $100,000 reward for the arrest and prosecution. And I've had $115,000 bonuses and contests before. So I paid $100,000. We're going to release the metadata, in the next few days InfoWars.com for the email address, the company and the folks in the company are going to track it back. And they're going to find out and we're going to pay the hundred thousand dollars and you're going to go to prison.
By the way, more than 20 people that have threatened us and my crew have gone to prison. When people threatened to kill George Bush or threatened to kill Obama, we reported you, you went to prison. And law enforcement knows we are law abiding, we're not offensively committing crimes. So $100,000 reward and we'll release the metadata by Monday of who sent this. And when they're arrested, you get $10,000. When they're convicted, you get $90,000. Now, I wonder who during discovery, would send emails, out of millions and then know what to search and look at? I don't know. I just think people are smart enough to know where to look at the ISP's. $100,000.
Oh, did I mention on conviction another hundred thousand? No, no wait. $1 million, $1 million. I can't help it. I've always done what I say I'll do ... I don't have a lot of money. But I'll sell my house. $1 million on conviction for who sent the child porn. $1 million dollars. We're going to publish all the metadata. We're going to turn you loose, the ISP',s the law enforcement. You know who did it. $1 million. So now it's not $10,000 for arrest .It's $100,000 for arrest. It's $1 million for conviction. $1 million.
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I like women with big giant tits and big asses. I don’t like kids like you goddamn rapists. Eff-heads. In fact, delete this: You f**** are going to get it. You f****** child molesters. I’ll f****** get you in the end. You f****. No, we’re done right there. You know what, I should have deleted it on radio. Probably still went out. I don’t care. You’re trying to set me up with child porn, I’ll get your ass. One million dollars, One million dollars. You little gang members. One million dollars to put your head on a pike. One million dollars, bitch.
I’m going to get your ass, you understand me now? You’re not going to ever defeat Texas, you sacks of shit, so you get ready for that.
So you get ready for that. Now I don't usually use French, but I'm pissed right now. Norm Pattis, you take over the segment. I apologize for my use of French here. But I'm really pissed right now. I'm not going to put up with this goddamn bullshit anymore.
Norm Pattis:I get that.
So you should have talked to me about the reward structure. go.
Alex Jones:It's $1 million!
Norm Pattis: But listen to me. I'm your lawyer. And it would behoove you to listen from time to time. You don't ever want to create an interest in the outcome in a potential witness.
Alex Jones:Why does law enforcement say $5,000, dead or alive?
$1 million! Because we all know who did it!
Norm Pattis:So let's talk about what happened here.
Alex Jones: You think I won't pay $1 million?
Norm Pattis: I didn't say that. I just don't want you to create an interest in the outcome of a person who testifies ...
I want to focus on the issue that got you angry because that's a great issue. Okay. And Aristotle once said that a wise men gets angry in the right way at the right time. And the right reason. You're so angry right now, you're just a touch unwise. But I'm still behind you 100% You should be angry. Because here's what happened.
Alex Jones: Every time I'm on the attack ...
Norm Pattis: Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me. You should be angry. I'm behind you 100%. Here's what I learned.
I got a call the other day saying that information that we were court-ordered to provide metadata for had been run by a California data processing firm for your adversaries in the Sandy Hook suit. They found an email that they shouldn't quote, have. they turned it over to the FBI, the FBI went through the metadata and found 12 emails that contained PDFs or images embedded in emails of child porn.
Some of those emails were directed to you and they were very hostile. And I'm not going to use the language that were used in those emails. Twelve images of child pornography if knowingly possessed by you, a member of your staff or me as your lawyer, could land any one or all of us in prison for up to five years. When I heard this, I fell over and I've not stopped being angry since. I'm not as angry as you but I'm not I'm angry. The point is that somebody directed child pornography into your email accounts hoping that you would open it so that when you opened it, there would be direct evidence that you had viewed knowingly child porn.
I turn here to the description of the next minute contained in the complaint filed Monday with the court by Mattei's law firm.
At 2:37:20, Jones names Attorney Mattei, pounds on a picture of his face, and threatens him: "And then now magically they want metadata out of hundreds of thousands of emails they got, and they know just where to go. What a nice group of Democrats. How surprising. What nice people. Chris Mattei. Chris Mattei. Let’s zoom in on Chris Mattei. Oh, nice little—[pounds picture of Attorney Mattei’s face with fist]—Chris Mattei. What a good American. What a good boy. You think you’ll put on me, what—[under his breath] I’m gonna kill . . . [growls]. Anyway, I’m done! Total war! You want it, you got it! I’m not into kids like your Democratic Party, you cxxxsuckers! So get ready"
At the Tuesday hearing, the plaintiffs will request an expedited briefing schedule concerning what orders must issue in connection with Mr. Jones’ on-air statements and Attorney Pattis’ participation in this broadcast. In addition, the plaintiffs may seek interim relief, to span the time during which the briefs are being filed.
Returning to the transcript:
Alex Jones: Anyways, you're my defense lawyer. I'm not putting up with these guys anymore, man. And their behavior. Because I'm not an idiot. They literally went right in there and found this hidden stuff. O, my God. Oh my God. They're my friends. Oh, we want to protect you now, Alex. Oh, oh, you're not going to get in trouble for what we found. Eff you man. Eff you to Hell, I pray God, not anybody else, God visit vengeance upon you in the name of Jesus Christ. And all the saints. I pray for divine intervention against the powers of Satan.
I literally would never have sex with children. I don't like having sex with children. I would never have sex with children. I am not a Democrat. I am not a liberal. I do not cut children's genitals off like the left does.
All right Norm. I apologize to our affiliates. We delayed (broadcasting) most of it out. But I've been fire breathing today.
Because I've talked to IT people and they say you got 9.6 million emails, you've got hundreds of thousands sent to the court. These are hidden links, that they knew right what to go to. And the people are appointed by Obama. And it's just like, God, I'm so sick of them. I am so sick of their filth, and living off the dead kids at Sandy Hook. And I've got all the statistics that I covered it like 0.2%, even with all the coverage now. They make it who I am. They live off these dead kids.
Because they watch Homeland and they believe their own filthy lies? And then they find, out of grains of sand at the beach, they found a magic child pornography? And how obvious is that, that we've got a problem in this country. And it's out of control. So we have we have nine minutes left, I appreciate you being a nice person. And we'll go over some of the metrics and show some of the things I talked about.
Norm Pattis:If I had one gift I could give you it would be to put Sandy Hook in the rear view mirror forever. I hate to see people put a burr under your saddle.
Jones starts to talk.
Norm Pattis: No, no, no, no stop, stop, you're gonna listen to me, you brought me down here. There were 9.6 million emails that were searched. We turned over about 57,000 of them. In 12 of them, there were embedded images of child pornography. As it turns out, those emails were never opened, the images were never opened. There's no evidence that anybody here or anyone affiliated with you, or you ever searched them.
So clearly they were placed in there as malware as evil- intended internet communications. I've spoken to federal prosecutors, they regard you as a victim, they do not regard you as in any way a suspect. No one's going to search your computers or trying to build a case against you.
Alex Jones:I want them to track it back to you-know-who.
Norm Pattis:You are not a suspect. You are not a target. You are not a person of interest. You are a victim. And that's the story.
Alex Jones: I wonder who the person of interest is?
Norm Pattis: Look, you're showing Chris Mattei's photograph.
Alex Jones:Oh, no, that was an accidental cut. He's a nice Obama boy, he's a good ...
Norm Pattis: Chris Mattei is your adversary in this litigation, just as I am the adversary of the people that have sued you and it is my responsibility to take their case apart if I can, and he will attack you.
Alex Jones: White shoe boy that thinks he owns America.
Norm Pattis:I'm not going to engage in a personal attack on Chris Mattei. I want to find out who sent the emails to you, and when I find that person, then I will go to war. I just ...
Alex Jones: You understand, hitting the links in an email no one looked at is like finding a needle in 5000 haystacks.
Norm Pattis: I agree Koskoff Koskoff and Bieder contracted out ...
Alex Jones: No, there's no limit to what they're gonna do.
Norm Pattis: They contracted out to a sophisticated data mining firm, they spent probably $100,000 to go through your emails, looking for whatever they could find. And they did find this. You believe that that was placed there and they knew where to look and how to find it. I'm not, I don't have evidence of that yet. I represent. Listen to me, young man, listen to me, I represent people ...
Alex Jones:They went a war. They're about to get one.
That's all I'm telling you right now. I ain't screwing no kids. I'm not a Democrat, man.
Norm Pattis: Hit the pause button.
I represent people accused of possessing child porn all the time. Some of them are set up. You have been set up.
Let's find the identity of the person who set you up and not leap to conclusions about who it might be. What if it was the other side, the other lawyers" I would be shocked. If it was some other person, a political operative, I would not be shocked.
We will publish the meta data. You've got samples of a data. We're in the process right now of working with the US Attorney's Office to get the actual communications. when I get those I will give them to you you publicize them and let your viewers ...
Alex Jones:I've already been accused of being a damn Russian. Now I'm a frickin' pedo, man.
Norm Pattis: Be bigger.
Alex Jones: Hell, dude, I'm sick of you Democrats, you're like the scum of the planet.
Norm Pattis:Be bigger than the people who accuse you.
There are people out there who want you because they're looking for a voice. They don't understand what's going on in this country. When you lose focus and lose that because of anger, they lose, they lose an anchor. They're looking to you for answers, not anger. Be angry. But as Aristotle once said, be angry at the right person at the right time, at the right way to the right degree.
xxxxxx
Alex Jones:Why do they want the metadata? So they want to plant something on me. So I told you that three weeks ago, and now they're ...
Norm Pattis: Hey, look, you are dead right. When I came down here, you know, I didn't know who you were. I knew who you were, I could place you on the political landscape. I hadn't watched your show. I've made a study of you in the last three or four months and you've won me over because I think you're an honest and angry American. But sometimes you're not angry at the right things and sometimes you get angry too quickly. And sometimes you get angry at the wrong thing.
Alex Jones: Let people try to plant child porn on your computer man.
Norm Pattis: I might find out who did it and then take them down, but not ...
Alex Jones:That's why I said $1 million. I'm not BS-ing. $1 million when they're convicted. The bounties out, bitches, and you know your Feds, they're gonna know you did it. They're gonna get your ass you little dirtbag. $1 million, bitch. It's out on yo' ass.
Norm Pattis: Well, if they're the grass, I will be your lawn mower. But let's make sure we're mowing the right lawn. Okay, I you have
Alex Jones: $1 million is on the street
We're going to get the emails. we're going to publish them next week. We're going to make a whole thing, we're not going to show the child porn, but we're going to put the emails out and we're going to show you where they came from and $1 million on the street.
Norm Pattis: And where I come from what's truly terrifying is this is the botto- feeding part of the effort to take you down. You've been de-platformed.
Alex Jones: Well now a million dollars is on offer after 'em. So sleep real good tonight, little jerk, because your own buddies are going to turn you in and you're going to go to prison. You little white shoe boy, jerk-off, son-of-a- bitch. I can't handle them anymore, I am sick of these people, bunch of chicken crap taking this country over. They want to attack real Americans.
Norm Pattis:Well be the real American and the real Americans attacks the right target. Let's find that target and...
Alex Jones: Oh my God. I know there's no way out of millions of emails that didn't even say child porn, they horned in on it. God almighty.
Norm Pattis: You're assuming they horned in on it. Ee don't know...
Alex Jones: Then whoever did it, told them to do it. We're gonna, yeah. $1 million! $1 million is on the street against you.You didn't destroy America on time, bitch.
I am pissed. man. I will give everything I have to stop living in this world with these people. Oh look Norm. We have Google Analytics to ask for how much do we cover Sandy Hook? Let's roll some of that. This is from Google — 0.28%. That's how much Google says we covered it. Boy, how does that fit into their model that I live off the dead kids which these vampires feed off of, not me.
Norm Pattis: You will win the lawsuit in Sandy Hook as a matter of law. It was protected speech and not defamatory and it was and ...
Alex Jones: And they know that so they put child porn on my servers.
Norm Pattis:That may well be the plan that some as yet unidentified person engaged in and we have to identify that person. It's easy to make an accusation, hard to prove it.
Alex Jones: I'm sure US attorneys appointed by Obama are sweet little cupcakes. I would never accuse them.
Norm Pattis:I didn't come on your show to be made out to look like a naive fool. I'm as tough as any lawyer you'll ever find.
Alex Jones: I'm not saying you're naive. You don't think errand boy did this. I'm actually not saying that. This is a setup ...
I've never screwed a kid. I don't want to screw a kid. Don't you ever project onto me? Don't you ever do it, you low lifes.
And so if they want war, you know, It's not a threat. It's just like an AC/DC song. If you want blood, you got blood on the streets, man. I mean, I am not gonna sit here in my life and have these dirtbags say that I've done these things I haven't done, and know where to go and weasel in and find this perfect thing. It's ridiculous how obvious it is.
Do you think I'd roll over and spray crap out my ass and show my belly and piss on myself and bow down to you? You just summoned war. So get ready.
And I'm just asking the Pentagon and the patriots that are left and 4Chan and 8Chan and Anonymous and anybody that's a patriot. I am under attack. And if they bring me down, they'll bring you down. I just have faith in you. I'm under attack. And I summon the meme war, I summon it all against the enemy. I will never sell out to these people.
Anyways, want to say some closing comments?
Norm Pattis: Hi mom.
No Alex, I can't respond to the rage. I get it.
Alex Jones:How would you like this? How would you like an Obama appointed US Attorney man that literally found a needle in a field of haystacks and tried to go to the Feds and get me indicted. It's war dude.
Killing me would be better. Turning me into a child molester, into your liberal God. I'll never be a sack of filth like you.
And now I ask listeners and everyone. You claim that I said people. I never said anybody. I want legal and lawful action. But I pray to God that America awakens
Will Texas be defeated? You will now decide.
The next day, Jones was back on the air with Pattis and apologized. He said he didn't mean to accuse Chris Mattei of setting him up.
In fact, and in very typical Jones fashion, as the apology rolled on Saturday, and again on Monday's show, he denied he had ever implicated Mattei.
And he said that, on Pattis' advice, he had withdrawn the million dollar bounty, because it was unwise to offer money for a conviction that might lead someone to give tainted testimony.
"And I said a million, and, well, the accountants explained to me we don't have anywhere close to that in the company coffers."
On Monday's show, Pattis, appearing remotely on the show, said to Jones:
I understand your suspicions but let's remember how the day began.
the day began with a motion suggesting that one of the attorneys for the Sandy Hook families felt threatened by what you said. And you know, of course you didn't threaten anybody. You were angry and you know, it was a pretty scary thing sitting next to you on the set wondering how far that anger would go. But I didn't hear anything that crossed a legal line. And let's be real if you're going to make your living as a litigator, walking on the raw side of other people's lives from time to time, you get a little bit of lava thrown your way. If you can't take the heat get out of the courtroom.
But, late Monday afternoon, after the show, Pattis filed his own motion with the court, arguing ahead of today's hearing in the case, for a stay of all proceedings:
Mr. Jones apologized for the statements he made the previous days broadcast saying, “I’m not saying that the lawyers for the Sandy Hook families set this up or did this.”
The plaintiffs’ allegations have raised serious issues concerning conflicts of interest in this case between the Jones defendants and undersigned counsel. Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7 states that: “a lawyer shall not represent a client if the representation involves a concurrent conflict of interest.” Therefore, in order to ensure that undersigned can continue to represent the defendants within the ethical duties proscribed by the Rules of Professional conduct, an investigation must be conducted. Undersigned counsel has already begun this process. However, undersigned counsel feels that these issues must be addressed before the above captioned cases proceed any further, in order to protect the interests of all parties involved.
What does all that mean?
I have no idea.
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Re: Alex Jones Trial: Witnesses Describe Conspiracy Theories
by admin » Mon Sep 19, 2022 1:39 am
Judge upholds Alex Jones’s escalating daily fines until he appears for deposition over Sandy Hook killings
by Nathan Place
April 1, 2022
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
Alex Jones is still on the hook to pay daily, steadily increasing fines for skipping a deposition, a judge has decided.
Judge Barbara Bellis of Waterbury, Connecticut ruled on Friday that the right-wing conspiracy theorist will continue to pay tens of thousands of dollars for every weekday he fails to attend. The first fine, on Friday, will be $25,000, and will increase by another $25,000 each business day after that.
Jones’ lawyers had asked Judge Bellis to hold off on the fines while he appealed the case to Connecticut’s State Supreme Court. Judge Bellis refused.
The deposition stems from a lawsuit by the families of children killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones, the host of the right-wing program InfoWars, publicly insisted that the shooting was a hoax – a false claim that the families say was defamatory.
Two days before he was set to testify under oath last week, Jones’ lawyers made a last-ditch attempt to delay it by claiming he was too sick to attend due to unnamed “medical conditions” and that doctors had advised him to remain at home. Judge Bellis rejected the request to delay, but Mr Jones failed to show anyway.
Lawyers for the Infowars host filed a motion on Thursday asking Judge Bellis to reconsider the fines in light of a newly-scheduled deposition on 11 April - arguing that it was unfair to require him to “pay fines totaling potentially $1.65 million for relying on a doctor’s note to not attend a deposition.”
Just as the motion was entered, Jones aired his grievances against Judge Bellis on his show, branding her a liar and a “thing”.
“We got this judge up in Connecticut, if you could call it that — this thing that has just cheated us every way, lied about us, said we didn’t give them this, sanctioned us for not giving them the ‘Sandy Hook marketing,’” Jones said, according to Media Matters. “It’s like saying give me the unicorn. Don’t have one, lady. I know you got a leprechaun.”
Jones’ lawyers have promised the pundit will appear for his deposition on 11 April. If the fines continue, that means he will owe $525,000.
by Nathan Place
April 1, 2022
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
Alex Jones is still on the hook to pay daily, steadily increasing fines for skipping a deposition, a judge has decided.
Judge Barbara Bellis of Waterbury, Connecticut ruled on Friday that the right-wing conspiracy theorist will continue to pay tens of thousands of dollars for every weekday he fails to attend. The first fine, on Friday, will be $25,000, and will increase by another $25,000 each business day after that.
Jones’ lawyers had asked Judge Bellis to hold off on the fines while he appealed the case to Connecticut’s State Supreme Court. Judge Bellis refused.
The deposition stems from a lawsuit by the families of children killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones, the host of the right-wing program InfoWars, publicly insisted that the shooting was a hoax – a false claim that the families say was defamatory.
Two days before he was set to testify under oath last week, Jones’ lawyers made a last-ditch attempt to delay it by claiming he was too sick to attend due to unnamed “medical conditions” and that doctors had advised him to remain at home. Judge Bellis rejected the request to delay, but Mr Jones failed to show anyway.
Lawyers for the Infowars host filed a motion on Thursday asking Judge Bellis to reconsider the fines in light of a newly-scheduled deposition on 11 April - arguing that it was unfair to require him to “pay fines totaling potentially $1.65 million for relying on a doctor’s note to not attend a deposition.”
Just as the motion was entered, Jones aired his grievances against Judge Bellis on his show, branding her a liar and a “thing”.
“We got this judge up in Connecticut, if you could call it that — this thing that has just cheated us every way, lied about us, said we didn’t give them this, sanctioned us for not giving them the ‘Sandy Hook marketing,’” Jones said, according to Media Matters. “It’s like saying give me the unicorn. Don’t have one, lady. I know you got a leprechaun.”
At issue on Tuesday: a Google Analytics spreadsheet covering audience traffic to Infowars, Mr. Jones’s media outlet. Lawyers for the plaintiffs — mostly families that lost children during the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting — said the database could help clarify the relationship between visits to the website and purchases through its store.
But until Friday afternoon, the families’ lawyers did not know the spreadsheet existed, they said. Alinor Sterling, one of the lawyers, told the judge that Mr. Jones’s team had denied its existence “in no uncertain terms and repeatedly” while withholding three years’ worth of data.
The assertion amounted to a “sequence of misrepresentation” that was “profoundly disturbing” given that “there was no possible way there was a lack of understanding of the importance of this evidence,” Ms. Sterling said.
Norm Pattis, a lawyer for Mr. Jones, responded that he was “not happy” about the failure to produce the evidence and called it an “awkward juncture in the litigation.” But he argued that there was no evidence that his client had relied on Google Analytics to guide his coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting, saying that just because the spreadsheet existed did not mean that Mr. Jones had consulted it.
-- Alex Jones Trial Takeaways: Witnesses Describe Conspiracy Theories Following Them After Shooting: The first day of testimony in a trial to determine how much Mr. Jones must pay in damages included an F.B.I. agent and the sister of a teacher who was killed. Both of them were targeted by Jones and his followers, by New York Times
Jones’ lawyers have promised the pundit will appear for his deposition on 11 April. If the fines continue, that means he will owe $525,000.
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Re: Alex Jones Trial: Witnesses Describe Conspiracy Theories
by admin » Mon Sep 19, 2022 1:58 am
Father Of Sandy Hook Shooting Victim Dies By Apparent Suicide
by Tovia Smith
NPR
March 25, 2019
4:26 PM ET
[x]
Jeremy Richman's 6-year-old daughter, Avielle, was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. After her death, he worked to support neuroscience research on harmful behavior. Jessica Hill/AP
The father of a Newtown, Conn., girl who was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting has died in an apparent suicide. Newtown Police say 49-year-old Jeremy Richman was found dead early Monday morning, not far from his office.
"This is a heartbreaking event for the Richman family and the Newtown Community as a whole; the police department's prayers are with the Richman family right now, and we ask that the family be given privacy in this most difficult time," said Lt. Aaron Bahamonde.
In 2012, Richman's 6-year-old daughter, Avielle, was among the 26 children and educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Just months after the death of Avielle, then their only child, Richman and his wife, Jennifer Hensel, co-founded the Avielle Foundation to support neuroscience research to shed light on "what leads someone to engage in harmful behavior" with the hope of "bridging biochemical and behavioral sciences," according to the foundation. Richman's dream was "a paradigm shift in the way society views the health of the brain." As he explained to NPR in 2017, he wanted people to see the brain as "just another organ that can be healthy or unhealthy, just like heart disease, or cancer or diabetes."
"Just like resources were poured into landing a man on the moon and exploring outer space," Richman said, "we need to invest in exploring our inner space."
A statement released by the Avielle Foundation read: "Tragically, [Richman's] death speaks to how insidious and formidable a challenge brain health can be and how critical it is for all of us to seek help for ourselves, our loved ones and anyone who we suspect may be in need."
Richman spoke openly and often about the depth of his grief. As his wife, Hensel, told NPR in 2017, "You have to pay attention to that, or it'll sneak up on you. It has to be tended to."
Richman deliberately spoke in excruciating detail about both the shooting and his pain.
"I want people to hear the reality of it," he said. "I want people to know that [the victims] were brutally blown apart with a large gun" and how the pain made him feel as though he'd "get spun right off the planet." Making people feel the scale of the horror, instead of turning away, he hoped, would motivate them to take action.
In the years since Sandy Hook, the constant news of subsequent shootings would come as body blows. At first, "we would just bawl. It would just hit us so hard," Richman said. But as the years went on, and the shootings kept happening, he said, their anger grew.
"I feel like we're letting it happen. There are things that could be done that aren't being done," he said.
The Avielle Foundation says "Jeremy's mission will be carried on by the many who love him, including many who share the heartache and trauma that he has suffered since December 14, 2012. We are crushed to pieces, but this important work will continue, because, as Jeremy would say, we have to."
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted that Richman was a "good friend and unceasing advocate":
The news of Richman's death follows two other deaths by apparent suicide of two student survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. Sydney Aiello, 19, who was a senior when a gunman killed 17 others at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, had been diagnosed with PTSD and suffered from survivor's guilt, according to her family. Police have not released the name of another student, who also died by apparent suicide over the weekend.
Correction
March 25, 2019: In a previous summary of this story that appeared on the homepage, Avielle Richman's first name was incorrectly given as Arielle.
by Tovia Smith
NPR
March 25, 2019
4:26 PM ET
[x]
Jeremy Richman's 6-year-old daughter, Avielle, was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. After her death, he worked to support neuroscience research on harmful behavior. Jessica Hill/AP
The father of a Newtown, Conn., girl who was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting has died in an apparent suicide. Newtown Police say 49-year-old Jeremy Richman was found dead early Monday morning, not far from his office.
"This is a heartbreaking event for the Richman family and the Newtown Community as a whole; the police department's prayers are with the Richman family right now, and we ask that the family be given privacy in this most difficult time," said Lt. Aaron Bahamonde.
In 2012, Richman's 6-year-old daughter, Avielle, was among the 26 children and educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Just months after the death of Avielle, then their only child, Richman and his wife, Jennifer Hensel, co-founded the Avielle Foundation to support neuroscience research to shed light on "what leads someone to engage in harmful behavior" with the hope of "bridging biochemical and behavioral sciences," according to the foundation. Richman's dream was "a paradigm shift in the way society views the health of the brain." As he explained to NPR in 2017, he wanted people to see the brain as "just another organ that can be healthy or unhealthy, just like heart disease, or cancer or diabetes."
"Just like resources were poured into landing a man on the moon and exploring outer space," Richman said, "we need to invest in exploring our inner space."
A statement released by the Avielle Foundation read: "Tragically, [Richman's] death speaks to how insidious and formidable a challenge brain health can be and how critical it is for all of us to seek help for ourselves, our loved ones and anyone who we suspect may be in need."
Richman spoke openly and often about the depth of his grief. As his wife, Hensel, told NPR in 2017, "You have to pay attention to that, or it'll sneak up on you. It has to be tended to."
Richman deliberately spoke in excruciating detail about both the shooting and his pain.
"I want people to hear the reality of it," he said. "I want people to know that [the victims] were brutally blown apart with a large gun" and how the pain made him feel as though he'd "get spun right off the planet." Making people feel the scale of the horror, instead of turning away, he hoped, would motivate them to take action.
In the years since Sandy Hook, the constant news of subsequent shootings would come as body blows. At first, "we would just bawl. It would just hit us so hard," Richman said. But as the years went on, and the shootings kept happening, he said, their anger grew.
"I feel like we're letting it happen. There are things that could be done that aren't being done," he said.
The Avielle Foundation says "Jeremy's mission will be carried on by the many who love him, including many who share the heartache and trauma that he has suffered since December 14, 2012. We are crushed to pieces, but this important work will continue, because, as Jeremy would say, we have to."
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted that Richman was a "good friend and unceasing advocate":
My god. This is awful, horrible, devastating news. Jeremy was a good friend and an unceasing advocate for better research into the brain’s violence triggers. He was with me in my office two weeks ago, excited as could be about the Avielle Foundation’s latest amazing work. https://t.co/xhy89JlXG8
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 25, 2019
The news of Richman's death follows two other deaths by apparent suicide of two student survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. Sydney Aiello, 19, who was a senior when a gunman killed 17 others at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, had been diagnosed with PTSD and suffered from survivor's guilt, according to her family. Police have not released the name of another student, who also died by apparent suicide over the weekend.
Correction
March 25, 2019: In a previous summary of this story that appeared on the homepage, Avielle Richman's first name was incorrectly given as Arielle.
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Re: Alex Jones Trial: Witnesses Describe Conspiracy Theories
by admin » Wed Oct 12, 2022 8:32 am
Parents of seven-year-old Sandy Hook massacre victim tell court how Alex Jones supporters urinated on their son's grave after the InfoWars host claimed the shooting was a hoax
by Mail Online Reporter
PUBLISHED: 13:19 EDT, 6 October 2022 | UPDATED: 13:19 EDT, 6 October 2022
The father of one of the 19 children killed inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 testified Tuesday against conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host Alex Jones, claiming that one of the host's followers peed on his son's grave.
Mark Barden (pictured in court), the father of seven-year-old Daniel Barden, told a courtroom that Jones and his podcast are responsible for an onslaught of hatred at vitriol aimed at his family following the deadly mass shooting. According to a reporter from The Huffington Post inside the trial, Barden said that Jones' comments prompted one of his followers to allegedly urinate on Daniel's grave, according to a letter sent to the Connecticut family.
Other letters received by the Bardens promised similar actions, while one person even threatened to dig up Daniel's grave in order to prove that there was no body. 'This is so sacrosanct and hallowed a place for my family and to hear that people were desecrating it and urinating on it and threatening to dig it up, I don´t know how to articulate to you what that feels like,' Barden told the jury. 'But that's where we are.' Pictured: Daniel Barden.
Jones (pictured) is currently on trial for defamation relating to comments about the shooting, which claimed the lives of 26 people. The InfoWars host has repeatedly stated that he believes the shooting was staged, no children were killed, and that the parents are all hired actors. Jones has already lost three lawsuits connected to his comments.
Mark and his wife Jackie (pictured), Daniel's mother, are just two of the more than 15 family members who have testified against Jones during the hearings. Jackie said Tuesday that hoax believers started harassing her family just weeks after their son died. The harassment hasn't stopped in the 10 years since the massacre.
The mom said that on top of leaving one of their children dead, the shooting and the threats that came after have left their other children eternally riddled with anxiety. 'It's terrible to think that your 20-year-old daughter is afraid,' Jackie said.
Throughout this trial and other legal proceedings related to Jones' words and actions, families have stated that they have received threats and malevolence. Some parents and siblings claimed that they have gotten rape and death threats and have had in-person confrontations with theorists claiming that they are all 'crisis actors.' Pictured: Victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
At least one family member said on the record that they received photos of dead children from conspiracy theorists looking to scare and startle them. The mother of another boy killed in the shooting, Ben Wheeler, said in court that she had a scary interaction at a conference on gun violence. Pictured: Video played in court showed moments in which Alex Jones spouted baseless lies about the Sandy Hook school shooting being a hoax.
Francine Wheeler (pictured) told the jury that a woman approached her and called her a liar, claiming the whole situation was a hoax. 'It's quite another thing when people take everything about your boy, who is gone, and your surviving child and your husband and everything you ever did in your life that is on the Internet and harass you and make fun of you,' she said. In 2021, a judge found Jones liable for spreading the dangerous falsehoods among his rather large fanbase. The judge said at the time that Jones' actions caused harm against the parents and siblings who initiated the lawsuit.
Current legal proceedings pertain to just how much Jones will have to pay. The jury is hearing testimony from parents and family members of those killed to assess how much Free Speech Systems, InfoWars' parent company, will pay in damages. This trial is similar to the Texas case filed by parents of 6-year-old Sandy Hook victim Jesse Lewis. In August, a jury awarded more than $45 million in damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis over the comments he made on his Austin-based show. Pictured: Parents Jackie and Mark — who say that their older daughter is riddled with anxiety after losing her brother in a shooting and facing years of harassment from conspiracy theorists.
In that trial, parents echoed the sentiments of parents in the ongoing court proceedings. A father said in court over that the summer that Jones made his life a 'living hell' with his comments regarding the shooting that claimed his child's life. The conspiracy theorist has acknowledged that the shooting in Newton, Connecticut, happened, but maintains to this day that parents and families involved are pushing an agenda against free-speech and gun rights. It's a far cry from an apology, though.
Earlier in the current trial, Jones called an attorney for one of the family's 'an ambulance chaser' and told the judge that he's 'done saying I'm sorry.' On Tuesday, Jones' lawyer said that the InfoWars host was leaving the state and had no further plans to testify again. Jones told reporters outside the Connecticut courthouse earlier in the day that he may be found in contempt of court by the judge 'not because I'm guilty, but because she said that if I tell the truth, she'll put me in the Waterbury jail for six months.'
The judge in this case has sought to limit Jones' testimony because he has already been found liable. Jones was found liable for his repeated court violations, including the fact that he ignore a court order by sharing financial documents with the plaintiffs. The attorneys for the plaintiffs are expected to wrap up their final arguments Wednesday. Pictured: Mark Barden, with son, Daniel, who died in Sandy Hook shooting.
by Mail Online Reporter
PUBLISHED: 13:19 EDT, 6 October 2022 | UPDATED: 13:19 EDT, 6 October 2022
The father of one of the 19 children killed inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 testified Tuesday against conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host Alex Jones, claiming that one of the host's followers peed on his son's grave.
Mark Barden (pictured in court), the father of seven-year-old Daniel Barden, told a courtroom that Jones and his podcast are responsible for an onslaught of hatred at vitriol aimed at his family following the deadly mass shooting. According to a reporter from The Huffington Post inside the trial, Barden said that Jones' comments prompted one of his followers to allegedly urinate on Daniel's grave, according to a letter sent to the Connecticut family.
Other letters received by the Bardens promised similar actions, while one person even threatened to dig up Daniel's grave in order to prove that there was no body. 'This is so sacrosanct and hallowed a place for my family and to hear that people were desecrating it and urinating on it and threatening to dig it up, I don´t know how to articulate to you what that feels like,' Barden told the jury. 'But that's where we are.' Pictured: Daniel Barden.
Jones (pictured) is currently on trial for defamation relating to comments about the shooting, which claimed the lives of 26 people. The InfoWars host has repeatedly stated that he believes the shooting was staged, no children were killed, and that the parents are all hired actors. Jones has already lost three lawsuits connected to his comments.
Mark and his wife Jackie (pictured), Daniel's mother, are just two of the more than 15 family members who have testified against Jones during the hearings. Jackie said Tuesday that hoax believers started harassing her family just weeks after their son died. The harassment hasn't stopped in the 10 years since the massacre.
The mom said that on top of leaving one of their children dead, the shooting and the threats that came after have left their other children eternally riddled with anxiety. 'It's terrible to think that your 20-year-old daughter is afraid,' Jackie said.
Throughout this trial and other legal proceedings related to Jones' words and actions, families have stated that they have received threats and malevolence. Some parents and siblings claimed that they have gotten rape and death threats and have had in-person confrontations with theorists claiming that they are all 'crisis actors.' Pictured: Victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
At least one family member said on the record that they received photos of dead children from conspiracy theorists looking to scare and startle them. The mother of another boy killed in the shooting, Ben Wheeler, said in court that she had a scary interaction at a conference on gun violence. Pictured: Video played in court showed moments in which Alex Jones spouted baseless lies about the Sandy Hook school shooting being a hoax.
Francine Wheeler (pictured) told the jury that a woman approached her and called her a liar, claiming the whole situation was a hoax. 'It's quite another thing when people take everything about your boy, who is gone, and your surviving child and your husband and everything you ever did in your life that is on the Internet and harass you and make fun of you,' she said. In 2021, a judge found Jones liable for spreading the dangerous falsehoods among his rather large fanbase. The judge said at the time that Jones' actions caused harm against the parents and siblings who initiated the lawsuit.
Current legal proceedings pertain to just how much Jones will have to pay. The jury is hearing testimony from parents and family members of those killed to assess how much Free Speech Systems, InfoWars' parent company, will pay in damages. This trial is similar to the Texas case filed by parents of 6-year-old Sandy Hook victim Jesse Lewis. In August, a jury awarded more than $45 million in damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis over the comments he made on his Austin-based show. Pictured: Parents Jackie and Mark — who say that their older daughter is riddled with anxiety after losing her brother in a shooting and facing years of harassment from conspiracy theorists.
In that trial, parents echoed the sentiments of parents in the ongoing court proceedings. A father said in court over that the summer that Jones made his life a 'living hell' with his comments regarding the shooting that claimed his child's life. The conspiracy theorist has acknowledged that the shooting in Newton, Connecticut, happened, but maintains to this day that parents and families involved are pushing an agenda against free-speech and gun rights. It's a far cry from an apology, though.
Earlier in the current trial, Jones called an attorney for one of the family's 'an ambulance chaser' and told the judge that he's 'done saying I'm sorry.' On Tuesday, Jones' lawyer said that the InfoWars host was leaving the state and had no further plans to testify again. Jones told reporters outside the Connecticut courthouse earlier in the day that he may be found in contempt of court by the judge 'not because I'm guilty, but because she said that if I tell the truth, she'll put me in the Waterbury jail for six months.'
The judge in this case has sought to limit Jones' testimony because he has already been found liable. Jones was found liable for his repeated court violations, including the fact that he ignore a court order by sharing financial documents with the plaintiffs. The attorneys for the plaintiffs are expected to wrap up their final arguments Wednesday. Pictured: Mark Barden, with son, Daniel, who died in Sandy Hook shooting.
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Re: Alex Jones Trial: Witnesses Describe Conspiracy Theories
by admin » Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:57 am
Jury decides conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay nearly $1 billion in damages to Sandy Hook families for his lies about the school massacre
by Oliver Darc
CNN Business
Updated 1:02 AM EDT, Thu October 13, 2022
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
Far-right talk show host Alex Jones should pay eight families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims and one first responder $965 million in compensatory damages, a Connecticut jury decided Wednesday, capping a wrenching weeks-long trial that put on display the serious harm inflicted by the conspiracy theorist’s lies.
With its punishing award, the decision could shrink or even doom Jones’ Infowars media empire, which has been at the center of major conspiracy theories dating back to former President George W. Bush’s administration and was embraced by President Donald Trump.
The plaintiffs and their attorneys were visibly emotional when the jury’s decision were read. The decision marks a key moment in the years-long process that began in 2018 when the families took legal action against Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, the parent of the fringe media organization Infowars.
Jones baselessly said again and again after the 2012 mass shooting, in which 26 people were killed, that the incident was staged, and that the families and first responders were “crisis actors.” The plaintiffs throughout the trial described in poignant terms how the lies had prompted unrelenting harassment against them and compounded the emotional agony of losing their loved ones.
Plaintiffs in the trial included family members of eight school students and employees, in addition to one FBI agent who responded to the scene. The three cases were all condensed into the single trial.
Jones was not in the courtroom for the verdict. He was streaming live when the jury’s decision was read in court, mocked the decision on his Infowars show and used it to fundraise.
It’s unclear when or how much of the money the plaintiffs will ultimately see. Jones has said that he will appeal the decision and during his Wednesday broadcast said that there “ain’t no money” to pay the massive figure the jury awarded the plaintiffs.
Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the plaintiffs, had urged jurors to award at least a half a billion dollars for having permanently mangled the lives of his clients. The figure, he said, would represent the more than 550 million online impressions Jones’ Sandy Hook lie allegedly received online.
“You may say that is astronomical. It is,” Mattei said. “It’s exactly what Alex Jones set himself up to do. That’s what he built. He built a lie machine that could push this stuff out. You reap what you sow.”
Mattei praised the jurors after the verdict was reached.
“The jury’s verdict is a testament to that courage, in a resounding affirmation that people of goodwill, dedicated to the truth, mindful of their responsibilities to their fellow citizens can come together to protect the innocent, to reveal lies masquerading as truth, and to set right a historic wrong,” Mattei told reporters outside the courthouse.
The decision in Connecticut comes two months after a separate jury in Texas determined that Jones and his company should award two Sandy Hook parents who sued in that state nearly $50 million. Later this month, the judge in that case will consider whether to reduce the punitive damages awarded under Texas law.
While Jones initially lied about the 2012 shooting, he later acknowledged that the massacre had occurred as he faced multiple lawsuits. But he failed to comply with court orders during the discovery process of the lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas, leading the families in each state to win default judgments against him.
During the latest trial, families of the Sandy Hook victims offered emotional testimony, telling the jury in haunting terms how Jones’ lies about the shooting had permanently altered their lives and compounded the pain of losing their loved ones.
Jones, who was cross-examined by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, but chose not to testify in his own defense as was originally planned, sought to portray himself as a victim of an elaborate “deep state” conspiracy against him.
In a particularly explosive moment in the trial, Jones tangled with an attorney for the plaintiffs, accusing him of “ambulance chasing,” before descending into an unhinged rant in court about “liberals.”
The judge overseeing the case admonished Jones several times during his testimony, warning him even at one point that he could be held in contempt of court if he violated her rules moving forward.
Jones has attacked the judicial process, even acknowledging in court that he had referred to the proceedings as those of a “kangaroo court” and called the judge a “tyrant.” He has already indicated that he plans to appeal.
This story has been updated with additional details.
by Oliver Darc
CNN Business
Updated 1:02 AM EDT, Thu October 13, 2022
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
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Far-right talk show host Alex Jones should pay eight families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims and one first responder $965 million in compensatory damages, a Connecticut jury decided Wednesday, capping a wrenching weeks-long trial that put on display the serious harm inflicted by the conspiracy theorist’s lies.
With its punishing award, the decision could shrink or even doom Jones’ Infowars media empire, which has been at the center of major conspiracy theories dating back to former President George W. Bush’s administration and was embraced by President Donald Trump.
The plaintiffs and their attorneys were visibly emotional when the jury’s decision were read. The decision marks a key moment in the years-long process that began in 2018 when the families took legal action against Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, the parent of the fringe media organization Infowars.
Jones baselessly said again and again after the 2012 mass shooting, in which 26 people were killed, that the incident was staged, and that the families and first responders were “crisis actors.” The plaintiffs throughout the trial described in poignant terms how the lies had prompted unrelenting harassment against them and compounded the emotional agony of losing their loved ones.
Plaintiffs in the trial included family members of eight school students and employees, in addition to one FBI agent who responded to the scene. The three cases were all condensed into the single trial.
Jones was not in the courtroom for the verdict. He was streaming live when the jury’s decision was read in court, mocked the decision on his Infowars show and used it to fundraise.
It’s unclear when or how much of the money the plaintiffs will ultimately see. Jones has said that he will appeal the decision and during his Wednesday broadcast said that there “ain’t no money” to pay the massive figure the jury awarded the plaintiffs.
Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the plaintiffs, had urged jurors to award at least a half a billion dollars for having permanently mangled the lives of his clients. The figure, he said, would represent the more than 550 million online impressions Jones’ Sandy Hook lie allegedly received online.
“You may say that is astronomical. It is,” Mattei said. “It’s exactly what Alex Jones set himself up to do. That’s what he built. He built a lie machine that could push this stuff out. You reap what you sow.”
Mattei praised the jurors after the verdict was reached.
“The jury’s verdict is a testament to that courage, in a resounding affirmation that people of goodwill, dedicated to the truth, mindful of their responsibilities to their fellow citizens can come together to protect the innocent, to reveal lies masquerading as truth, and to set right a historic wrong,” Mattei told reporters outside the courthouse.
The decision in Connecticut comes two months after a separate jury in Texas determined that Jones and his company should award two Sandy Hook parents who sued in that state nearly $50 million. Later this month, the judge in that case will consider whether to reduce the punitive damages awarded under Texas law.
While Jones initially lied about the 2012 shooting, he later acknowledged that the massacre had occurred as he faced multiple lawsuits. But he failed to comply with court orders during the discovery process of the lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas, leading the families in each state to win default judgments against him.
During the latest trial, families of the Sandy Hook victims offered emotional testimony, telling the jury in haunting terms how Jones’ lies about the shooting had permanently altered their lives and compounded the pain of losing their loved ones.
Jones, who was cross-examined by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, but chose not to testify in his own defense as was originally planned, sought to portray himself as a victim of an elaborate “deep state” conspiracy against him.
In a particularly explosive moment in the trial, Jones tangled with an attorney for the plaintiffs, accusing him of “ambulance chasing,” before descending into an unhinged rant in court about “liberals.”
The judge overseeing the case admonished Jones several times during his testimony, warning him even at one point that he could be held in contempt of court if he violated her rules moving forward.
Jones has attacked the judicial process, even acknowledging in court that he had referred to the proceedings as those of a “kangaroo court” and called the judge a “tyrant.” He has already indicated that he plans to appeal.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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Re: Alex Jones Trial: Witnesses Describe Conspiracy Theories
by admin » Fri Nov 11, 2022 5:35 am
Alex Jones's Assets Are Frozen by Judge in Sandy Hook Case
by Laurel Brubaker Calkins
Bloomberg News
November 10, 2022 at 10:52 AM MST
Infowars host Alex Jones was temporarily blocked from transferring any assets or spending money other than for ordinary living expenses by the judge overseeing the Sandy Hook defamation trial in Connecticut.
State court Judge Barbara Bellis, who oversaw the case in which a jury last month ordered Jones to pay nearly $1 billion for spreading lies about the 2012 elementary school massacre, issued the freezing order late Wednesday over concerns that he was “looting” his own estate and hiding assets through a series of shell companies owned by family members.
“With the exception of ordinary living expenses, the defendant Alex Jones is not to transfer, encumber, dispose, or move his assets out of the United States, until further order of the court,” Bellis said in the one-page order.
Jurors awarded five families and a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who responded to the 2012 school massacre $965 million in damages last month to compensate them for the reputational harm and emotional distress caused by years of Jones pushing conspiracy theories that the shooting was faked and the grieving parents were “crisis actors.”
Bellis is also currently weighing imposing additional punitive damages on Jones.
The plaintiffs had requested Bellis freeze Jones’s assets, and she set a Dec. 2 evidentiary hearing. In court papers, Jones’s lawyer urged the judge not to grant the request before that hearing and suggested that, if she did, “in an uncanny way it would bolster Mr. Jones’s contention that the results of these proceedings were rigged and that the court appeared partial to the plaintiffs.”
It isn’t clear how Bellis’ order will interact with a related bankruptcy proceeding underway in Houston federal court, where Infowars’s parent company, Free Speech Systems LLC, filed for creditor protection back in July. In that proceeding, most claims against Jones’s company were temporarily put on hold, although the defamation trial was allowed to proceed, until the bankruptcy court sorts out assets and claims.
The families also asked Bellis to order a complete accounting of Jones’s assets, which he has steadfastly refused to provide, and that he be required to bring all movable property to Connecticut for safekeeping by the court. The judge hasn’t yet addressed those requests.
The case is Lafferty v Jones, 18-6046436, Connecticut Superior Court (Waterbury).
by Laurel Brubaker Calkins
Bloomberg News
November 10, 2022 at 10:52 AM MST
Infowars host Alex Jones was temporarily blocked from transferring any assets or spending money other than for ordinary living expenses by the judge overseeing the Sandy Hook defamation trial in Connecticut.
State court Judge Barbara Bellis, who oversaw the case in which a jury last month ordered Jones to pay nearly $1 billion for spreading lies about the 2012 elementary school massacre, issued the freezing order late Wednesday over concerns that he was “looting” his own estate and hiding assets through a series of shell companies owned by family members.
“With the exception of ordinary living expenses, the defendant Alex Jones is not to transfer, encumber, dispose, or move his assets out of the United States, until further order of the court,” Bellis said in the one-page order.
Jurors awarded five families and a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who responded to the 2012 school massacre $965 million in damages last month to compensate them for the reputational harm and emotional distress caused by years of Jones pushing conspiracy theories that the shooting was faked and the grieving parents were “crisis actors.”
Bellis is also currently weighing imposing additional punitive damages on Jones.
The plaintiffs had requested Bellis freeze Jones’s assets, and she set a Dec. 2 evidentiary hearing. In court papers, Jones’s lawyer urged the judge not to grant the request before that hearing and suggested that, if she did, “in an uncanny way it would bolster Mr. Jones’s contention that the results of these proceedings were rigged and that the court appeared partial to the plaintiffs.”
It isn’t clear how Bellis’ order will interact with a related bankruptcy proceeding underway in Houston federal court, where Infowars’s parent company, Free Speech Systems LLC, filed for creditor protection back in July. In that proceeding, most claims against Jones’s company were temporarily put on hold, although the defamation trial was allowed to proceed, until the bankruptcy court sorts out assets and claims.
The families also asked Bellis to order a complete accounting of Jones’s assets, which he has steadfastly refused to provide, and that he be required to bring all movable property to Connecticut for safekeeping by the court. The judge hasn’t yet addressed those requests.
The case is Lafferty v Jones, 18-6046436, Connecticut Superior Court (Waterbury).
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Re: Alex Jones Trial: Witnesses Describe Conspiracy Theories
by admin » Sat Feb 04, 2023 4:12 am
BOMBSHELL Texts From Alex Jones REVEALED
The Young Turks
Feb 2, 2023
Go to https://ground.news/TYT to uplevel your news reading experience and support an independent news platform on a mission to make the media landscape more transparent.
The contents of Alex Jones' phone, including very personal text messages, have been published. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
Read more HERE: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2...
"Jones’ life, as revealed in the texts, is overshadowed by a sense of isolation. He appears to chat with almost no one who could be described as a friend, disentangled from his activism or Infowars work. Nearly everyone with whom he corresponds, outside of a few people in his family, connects with Jones through their relationship to Infowars, either as an employee or as another pro-Trump influencer. He sends and receives messages with more than 120 people who fit that description. Jones speaks with over 40 people who provide what could be described as personal services to him, like his personal trainer.
Hatewatch has divided our reporting on the texts into a series. This story is part one, and it focuses on what the messages reveal about Jones’ life without the cover of his performance on Infowars. Hatewatch reached out to Jones for a comment on this investigation by text and email. He did not respond, and appeared to block this Hatewatch reporter's phone number. We will update the story if he decides to provide comment after publication."
***
Transcript
0:00
when Alex Jones was getting sued by the
0:02
families of Sandy Hook who he had
0:04
defamed as crisis actors
0:07
his lawyers were incompetent enough to
0:10
accidentally send the entire digital
0:12
copy of his cell phone to the
0:15
attorney representing said Sandy Hook
0:19
families
0:20
well now those texts have been made
0:22
public the Southern Poverty Law Center
0:24
has reported on them and oh boy it is a
0:27
doozy now
0:30
I felt tempted to feel sorry for Alex
0:33
Jones because he's such a miserable sad
0:35
person
0:37
but if you also get that temptation to
0:39
feel bad for him just remember that he
0:41
made the lives of the parents who lost
0:44
their children in that shooting
0:46
miserable okay to the point where one
0:49
family had to move eight times to get
0:52
away from Alex Jones's audience members
0:54
who were sending them death threats
0:56
following them around stalking them one
0:58
person even got arrested for doing so so
1:00
just keep that in mind with that said
1:01
though okay I want to add one thing that
1:03
comes out in these uh in this story
1:06
he said once on air that it should be
1:10
lgbtp instead of cubicus stands for
1:13
pedophiles and then he went on to say
1:15
that gay people chop up your children
1:17
with an ax and rape them okay so that's
1:22
the kind of disgusting pig that Alex
1:24
Jones is I don't feel sorry about any of
1:27
his misery I love that he's miserable
1:29
and by the way of course it's always
1:31
self-hatred it turns out there's an
1:34
overwhelming chance that he's by at a
1:37
minimum okay I'm going to show you some
1:39
of those details in a second too
1:41
so uh he says this quite often in the
1:45
text Alex Jones described himself as
1:47
living in Hell being part of a sick joke
1:50
and sinking down into a black hole yes
1:54
yes that was repeated many times
1:56
throughout these text exchanges with
1:59
multiple people now the texts also show
2:01
that Alex Jones feels alienated or is
2:04
alienated and has few or no friends only
2:08
chats with other Pro trumpers and people
2:11
he knows through his work if you can
2:15
call it that over at Infowars now even
2:17
in text with his dad
2:19
you could tell his dad wants nothing to
2:23
do with him his dad never responds to
2:24
him
2:25
here we'll give you some examples Alex
2:27
Jones to David Jones that's his father
2:31
it's no big deal in another text message
2:33
I get notice via uh media meaning notice
2:37
about
2:38
you know the the the the trial that he's
2:41
facing uh the amount of money he has to
2:44
pay all of that so I just need to start
2:47
shutting down
2:48
I always get my legal news a few weeks
2:50
late via news and then another text I
2:54
just need to love it I don't I don't
2:56
know what that means his dad probably
2:58
didn't know what it meant either that's
2:59
why he never replied to him yeah his dad
3:01
never replied
3:02
so he was ignored uh despite that he
3:05
tries again uh continues texting his
3:08
father
3:09
I is very scary probably it is what he
3:13
meant it is very scary to never almost
3:15
never to learn about stuff from
3:17
yourselves
3:18
if that doesn't make any sense you're
3:20
going to see later there's a lot of
3:21
vodka involved in his life yes uh if
3:24
very disconcerting
3:27
um and then and nothing can stop it
3:30
then he writes uh it seems but
3:34
yes it's a misspelled whatever uh it's
3:36
like gravity a black hole and then
3:38
there's a whole Emoji apparently
3:40
so uh his father never responds to that
3:42
either the report also sheds light on uh
3:45
Jones's conversations with his uh Second
3:48
and current wife uh Erica Wolfe there
3:51
was a lot included in the Southern
3:53
Poverty Law centers reporting on this
3:56
I just felt gross to share all of it and
3:59
I'm not going to get into all of it but
4:01
let me just say it's very clear that she
4:04
wants out of that marriage she has
4:05
suggested divorce multiple times uh he
4:10
is concerned that she's cheating on him
4:12
accuses her of cheating on him has
4:15
actually deployed people to spy on her
4:18
because he suspects that she's cheating
4:19
on him they have gotten into physical
4:22
altercations which is clear based on
4:24
text exchanges that he has shared with
4:26
his father uh in one case he says that
4:29
they got into a fight it got violent and
4:32
that her jaw is in pain and that she's
4:35
looking for painkillers his father
4:37
happens to be a dentist who I assume
4:40
would have the ability to prescribe
4:42
painkillers to her but nonetheless it
4:46
seems like a very dangerous and toxic
4:47
relationship I am not reticent to go
4:51
into it so I will
4:53
um so first of all
4:54
um he watches cuckold porn
4:58
Zone all right uh and then he's obsessed
5:02
with is his wife having sex with others
5:04
and so that he hires a former black
5:06
water guy to track her throughout Town
5:08
not at all creepy uh but get a load of
5:11
this extra irony he usually uh asks the
5:15
guy to follow her while he's having an
5:18
affair so Alex Jones will go to someone
5:20
else's house and he says I want a sucky
5:23
in the text and meanwhile he's telling
5:26
the Blackwater guy hey while I go have
5:28
sex with the other woman uh see if my
5:30
wife is having sex with someone else I
5:32
don't know if it's because he's going to
5:34
be angry about it or he's going to be
5:35
turned on by it
5:37
um so we know publicly he accidentally
5:39
showed the transport that he was
5:40
watching uh in in a stream that he did
5:43
and said that oh yeah that's on
5:44
everybody's phone and then his wife
5:48
and they have a lot of sexual text back
5:50
and forth
5:51
it heavily implying that he's bisexual
5:55
at some point she sends just a picture
5:58
of a large black penis to him no women
6:00
in the picture and then she says you be
6:04
bi okay uh now look maybe his wife is
6:08
wrong and he's not bisexual maybe he
6:09
looked at that picture and was like I
6:11
don't know why you sent this to me it's
6:13
possible okay I'm just giving you the
6:14
facts but
6:16
it appears there is massive
6:19
self-loathing in that black hole that he
6:21
describes yeah and look I I don't know I
6:23
don't know why I felt uncomfortable
6:24
sharing that part of it but
6:28
consider the fact that he very likely
6:31
might be bi and says some of the worst
6:34
things publicly about the LGBT community
6:37
yes that's why it's self-hatred yeah
6:40
okay uh so you you mentioned the porn
6:42
stuff I think that's relevant too
6:44
because of course publicly he has this
6:47
Persona as someone who's just almost
6:49
puritanical when it comes to his views
6:52
on pornography but behind the scenes
6:55
he's like sending PornHub links to his
6:57
employees
6:59
okay so uh like it's it's just crazy to
7:03
me like I can't imagine anyone at work
7:05
sending me porn links but that's what
7:06
he's been doing so uh Joan shares links
7:08
to pornographic videos in texts uh that
7:11
hate watch reviewed uh the videos he
7:13
shares have titles that indicate they
7:15
likely contain the same hardcore content
7:18
he derides many of the videos uh which
7:21
include in their titles words like
7:22
cuckolding and hot slaves along with a
7:25
variety of explicit sex acts future a
7:28
woman having sex with multiple men now
7:30
that part is relevant because on his
7:32
show he condemned anyone who watches
7:35
pornography and he specifically talked
7:37
about that kind of porn that he happened
7:40
to be watching himself and sharing with
7:42
other employees I mean it's so it's such
7:45
classic projection on the air he's like
7:47
they're degrading these poor women 20
7:49
guys at once it's a plot and by the way
7:52
you'll never guess who he thinks uh the
7:54
plot was hatched by the plot of
7:56
pornography
7:57
juice okay so he's blaming Jewish
8:01
Americans for porn that he himself is
8:04
watching and that's why he's obsessed
8:06
with and then on air he's like oh yeah
8:08
I'll tell you what the universe was
8:10
globalists Etc they're doing the porn
8:11
meanwhile he goes back home he's like I
8:13
love that porn where is it 20 guys at
8:16
once all the genitalia okay and looking
8:20
up the cuckolding Etc so it's a
8:22
catastrophe uh and normally I would feel
8:26
any other human being I'd feel terrible
8:28
about it and you don't look very private
8:30
you know sex life is their own Etc but
8:33
you talking about gay people chopping up
8:34
people's kids on air you sick
8:38
after you know who you are okay take
8:41
your own stupid personal problems and go
8:44
to a Goddamn therapist instead of
8:47
weaponizing your lunatic audience to go
8:50
harm people I mean he needs to get
8:54
substance abuse treatment because he's
8:56
also dealing with a pretty severe issue
8:59
with alcoholism so
9:01
uh one of the employees that has turned
9:05
on him has been speaking out against him
9:07
is this guy named Zach Drucker he worked
9:10
at infowar Wars on and off for about six
9:13
years and so Drucker disclosed that Alex
9:16
Jones would engage in substance abuse at
9:19
work he would be drinking at work uh in
9:22
fact Drucker is the one who leaked
9:24
footage of Alex drinking during the day
9:27
while working at Infowars when he was
9:29
asked why he did it he said that he did
9:31
it to show his co-workers that they're
9:33
dealing with an unstable person Drucker
9:36
also told hate watch that Jones would
9:37
walk around the office carrying a white
9:40
Dixie cup and nine out of ten times
9:42
there would be vodka in it and you'll
9:45
notice that vodka seems to be his liquor
9:47
of choice in some text exchanges he had
9:49
employees pick up vodka and deliver it
9:52
to him to the office okay and I want to
9:56
give you one example of a text exchange
9:58
that he had on February 6th of 2012 20.
10:02
so Alex Jones to Patrick Riley I am sick
10:06
Patrick Riley uh Alex Jones and Patrick
10:09
Riley no slay I guess they would work
10:11
out together so that's what he was
10:12
referring to uh Patrick Riley responds
10:14
sorry to hear uh hear that hope you feel
10:16
better and that he responds tell Derek
10:19
to get me vodka that is you see that
10:22
over and over and over again get me
10:24
vodka get me vodka right now I need the
10:26
Vodka right now okay so all right look
10:29
he's got an alcohol problem again go to
10:32
a therapist deal with it instead of
10:34
dealing with it on air and encouraging
10:35
uh your audience to do Insane things I
10:38
want to quickly go back to what he how
10:42
he treats his wife and how he is um
10:44
having people essentially spy on his
10:46
wife so hate watch found two instances
10:49
where Jones contacts his Security
10:51
employee former Austin Police Department
10:53
Officer and Blackwater mercenary Tim
10:56
Enloe to apparently monitor his wife I
10:59
want to be specific about how he had
11:02
people spy on his wife the other thing I
11:04
wanted to share was just one text
11:06
exchange between Alex Jones and his wife
11:08
so Jones to Erica Wolfe he says you hate
11:13
us
11:14
she never responds to him okay then he
11:17
says I see it in your eyes you won't
11:19
even talk to me pick up now you won't
11:21
even break away for one minute to talk
11:24
to me there have been examples of text
11:26
exchanges that you can read in this
11:28
reporting where he's just texting her
11:30
endlessly over and over again she's not
11:32
responding and then she puts like an
11:34
away message an automatic away message
11:37
uh so as he's texting her the only
11:40
response he gets is like this automatic
11:42
I'm away from my phone right now I'll
11:45
get back to you once I return like that
11:46
kind of thing and he was Furious about
11:48
it well you know what's really romantic
11:50
hiring a black water mercenary to track
11:53
your wife across all across town while
11:55
you're cheating on her and yeah and I
11:58
mean with the by the way his
12:01
um mistress also right wing lunatics
12:05
sending him you know all these messages
12:07
from white supremacist websites about
12:09
the Jews and everybody else of course
12:11
and uh but they but with her she's he's
12:14
a little bit more romantic he's he wants
12:17
her to run a bath for him and he's got
12:19
all these things and when then while
12:21
he's yelling at his wife he's with the
12:23
mistress like where are you what's going
12:25
on with you and someone else okay come
12:27
on it's time for my bath right so look I
12:29
think that the way Infowars is going to
12:31
end is they're going to have like one
12:32
like some sort of convention or
12:33
something and all the crazy guys in the
12:35
audience are going to have sex with each
12:36
other and they're going to be satiated
12:37
and then we're all going to be done with
12:39
this now as long as we don't have to
12:40
hear the details about that that would
12:41
be great
12:43
um now one final thing I'll say okay
12:46
the message that I feel like most
12:48
Americans hear from like the moment
12:50
they're born to the moment they die is
12:52
that the only thing that will make them
12:53
happy is material stuff right Alex Jones
12:56
I mean literally selling weirdo
13:00
supplements brought in hundreds of
13:03
millions of dollars this was fabulously
13:05
wealthy obviously these lawsuits and the
13:07
uh damages he has to pay
13:09
kind of destroyed that but nonetheless
13:13
when all you care about is obtaining
13:16
money and you don't care about who
13:18
you're gonna hurt in your quest for that
13:21
power and money
13:22
you know who you end up like I'll show
13:25
you you end up like this guy this poor
13:27
poor guy no yeah
13:29
precious he fell into a black hole too
13:33
and never got out um think about it so
13:36
that that's Alex Jones in a couple of
13:38
years
13:39
um so
13:41
look
13:42
yeah I I take some joy in Alex Jones
13:45
being
13:46
deeply miserable uh in his private life
13:49
uh this is not a normal debate oh I
13:52
don't like his views on regulation or
13:54
free trade no the guy's a monster it
13:57
encourages his audience to do Terrible
13:59
Things against people who are
14:02
defenseless so our job is to fight back
14:04
against bullies and knowing that those
14:06
bullies might be rich and might have all
14:09
these things but at the end of the day
14:12
they're deeply miserable makes me happy
14:15
and should make you happy the next time
14:18
you get angry about Alex Jones think
14:19
well at least I'll never be as miserable
14:21
as he is here at tyt we work to cut
14:24
through all the establishment media's
14:25
biases and bring you the news from a
14:27
factual and Progressive Viewpoint now
14:29
allow me to introduce you to ground news
14:31
a new tool that you can use to stay
14:33
informed on what's really going on
14:35
around the world ground news doesn't
14:37
just bring you the information it also
14:39
provides you with an easy to use rating
14:41
system that measures each article's
14:43
political leanings factuality and gives
14:46
you complete transparency on who owns
14:49
the news that you're reading like today
14:51
I was on their site and I saw an article
14:53
about some improvements in the ozone
14:54
layer and I was a little skeptical
14:56
because good news about the climate is
14:58
pretty rare these days but with over a
15:00
hundred sources originating from an even
15:02
spread of news organizations I was
15:05
confident that what I was reading was
15:06
true so score one for Earth
15:09
so get the whole picture and break
15:11
through the corporate media agenda by
15:13
subscribing to ground news today
15:20
[Music]
The Young Turks
Feb 2, 2023
Go to https://ground.news/TYT to uplevel your news reading experience and support an independent news platform on a mission to make the media landscape more transparent.
The contents of Alex Jones' phone, including very personal text messages, have been published. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
Read more HERE: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2...
"Jones’ life, as revealed in the texts, is overshadowed by a sense of isolation. He appears to chat with almost no one who could be described as a friend, disentangled from his activism or Infowars work. Nearly everyone with whom he corresponds, outside of a few people in his family, connects with Jones through their relationship to Infowars, either as an employee or as another pro-Trump influencer. He sends and receives messages with more than 120 people who fit that description. Jones speaks with over 40 people who provide what could be described as personal services to him, like his personal trainer.
Hatewatch has divided our reporting on the texts into a series. This story is part one, and it focuses on what the messages reveal about Jones’ life without the cover of his performance on Infowars. Hatewatch reached out to Jones for a comment on this investigation by text and email. He did not respond, and appeared to block this Hatewatch reporter's phone number. We will update the story if he decides to provide comment after publication."
***
Transcript
0:00
when Alex Jones was getting sued by the
0:02
families of Sandy Hook who he had
0:04
defamed as crisis actors
0:07
his lawyers were incompetent enough to
0:10
accidentally send the entire digital
0:12
copy of his cell phone to the
0:15
attorney representing said Sandy Hook
0:19
families
0:20
well now those texts have been made
0:22
public the Southern Poverty Law Center
0:24
has reported on them and oh boy it is a
0:27
doozy now
0:30
I felt tempted to feel sorry for Alex
0:33
Jones because he's such a miserable sad
0:35
person
0:37
but if you also get that temptation to
0:39
feel bad for him just remember that he
0:41
made the lives of the parents who lost
0:44
their children in that shooting
0:46
miserable okay to the point where one
0:49
family had to move eight times to get
0:52
away from Alex Jones's audience members
0:54
who were sending them death threats
0:56
following them around stalking them one
0:58
person even got arrested for doing so so
1:00
just keep that in mind with that said
1:01
though okay I want to add one thing that
1:03
comes out in these uh in this story
1:06
he said once on air that it should be
1:10
lgbtp instead of cubicus stands for
1:13
pedophiles and then he went on to say
1:15
that gay people chop up your children
1:17
with an ax and rape them okay so that's
1:22
the kind of disgusting pig that Alex
1:24
Jones is I don't feel sorry about any of
1:27
his misery I love that he's miserable
1:29
and by the way of course it's always
1:31
self-hatred it turns out there's an
1:34
overwhelming chance that he's by at a
1:37
minimum okay I'm going to show you some
1:39
of those details in a second too
1:41
so uh he says this quite often in the
1:45
text Alex Jones described himself as
1:47
living in Hell being part of a sick joke
1:50
and sinking down into a black hole yes
1:54
yes that was repeated many times
1:56
throughout these text exchanges with
1:59
multiple people now the texts also show
2:01
that Alex Jones feels alienated or is
2:04
alienated and has few or no friends only
2:08
chats with other Pro trumpers and people
2:11
he knows through his work if you can
2:15
call it that over at Infowars now even
2:17
in text with his dad
2:19
you could tell his dad wants nothing to
2:23
do with him his dad never responds to
2:24
him
2:25
here we'll give you some examples Alex
2:27
Jones to David Jones that's his father
2:31
it's no big deal in another text message
2:33
I get notice via uh media meaning notice
2:37
about
2:38
you know the the the the trial that he's
2:41
facing uh the amount of money he has to
2:44
pay all of that so I just need to start
2:47
shutting down
2:48
I always get my legal news a few weeks
2:50
late via news and then another text I
2:54
just need to love it I don't I don't
2:56
know what that means his dad probably
2:58
didn't know what it meant either that's
2:59
why he never replied to him yeah his dad
3:01
never replied
3:02
so he was ignored uh despite that he
3:05
tries again uh continues texting his
3:08
father
3:09
I is very scary probably it is what he
3:13
meant it is very scary to never almost
3:15
never to learn about stuff from
3:17
yourselves
3:18
if that doesn't make any sense you're
3:20
going to see later there's a lot of
3:21
vodka involved in his life yes uh if
3:24
very disconcerting
3:27
um and then and nothing can stop it
3:30
then he writes uh it seems but
3:34
yes it's a misspelled whatever uh it's
3:36
like gravity a black hole and then
3:38
there's a whole Emoji apparently
3:40
so uh his father never responds to that
3:42
either the report also sheds light on uh
3:45
Jones's conversations with his uh Second
3:48
and current wife uh Erica Wolfe there
3:51
was a lot included in the Southern
3:53
Poverty Law centers reporting on this
3:56
I just felt gross to share all of it and
3:59
I'm not going to get into all of it but
4:01
let me just say it's very clear that she
4:04
wants out of that marriage she has
4:05
suggested divorce multiple times uh he
4:10
is concerned that she's cheating on him
4:12
accuses her of cheating on him has
4:15
actually deployed people to spy on her
4:18
because he suspects that she's cheating
4:19
on him they have gotten into physical
4:22
altercations which is clear based on
4:24
text exchanges that he has shared with
4:26
his father uh in one case he says that
4:29
they got into a fight it got violent and
4:32
that her jaw is in pain and that she's
4:35
looking for painkillers his father
4:37
happens to be a dentist who I assume
4:40
would have the ability to prescribe
4:42
painkillers to her but nonetheless it
4:46
seems like a very dangerous and toxic
4:47
relationship I am not reticent to go
4:51
into it so I will
4:53
um so first of all
4:54
um he watches cuckold porn
4:58
Zone all right uh and then he's obsessed
5:02
with is his wife having sex with others
5:04
and so that he hires a former black
5:06
water guy to track her throughout Town
5:08
not at all creepy uh but get a load of
5:11
this extra irony he usually uh asks the
5:15
guy to follow her while he's having an
5:18
affair so Alex Jones will go to someone
5:20
else's house and he says I want a sucky
5:23
in the text and meanwhile he's telling
5:26
the Blackwater guy hey while I go have
5:28
sex with the other woman uh see if my
5:30
wife is having sex with someone else I
5:32
don't know if it's because he's going to
5:34
be angry about it or he's going to be
5:35
turned on by it
5:37
um so we know publicly he accidentally
5:39
showed the transport that he was
5:40
watching uh in in a stream that he did
5:43
and said that oh yeah that's on
5:44
everybody's phone and then his wife
5:48
and they have a lot of sexual text back
5:50
and forth
5:51
it heavily implying that he's bisexual
5:55
at some point she sends just a picture
5:58
of a large black penis to him no women
6:00
in the picture and then she says you be
6:04
bi okay uh now look maybe his wife is
6:08
wrong and he's not bisexual maybe he
6:09
looked at that picture and was like I
6:11
don't know why you sent this to me it's
6:13
possible okay I'm just giving you the
6:14
facts but
6:16
it appears there is massive
6:19
self-loathing in that black hole that he
6:21
describes yeah and look I I don't know I
6:23
don't know why I felt uncomfortable
6:24
sharing that part of it but
6:28
consider the fact that he very likely
6:31
might be bi and says some of the worst
6:34
things publicly about the LGBT community
6:37
yes that's why it's self-hatred yeah
6:40
okay uh so you you mentioned the porn
6:42
stuff I think that's relevant too
6:44
because of course publicly he has this
6:47
Persona as someone who's just almost
6:49
puritanical when it comes to his views
6:52
on pornography but behind the scenes
6:55
he's like sending PornHub links to his
6:57
employees
6:59
okay so uh like it's it's just crazy to
7:03
me like I can't imagine anyone at work
7:05
sending me porn links but that's what
7:06
he's been doing so uh Joan shares links
7:08
to pornographic videos in texts uh that
7:11
hate watch reviewed uh the videos he
7:13
shares have titles that indicate they
7:15
likely contain the same hardcore content
7:18
he derides many of the videos uh which
7:21
include in their titles words like
7:22
cuckolding and hot slaves along with a
7:25
variety of explicit sex acts future a
7:28
woman having sex with multiple men now
7:30
that part is relevant because on his
7:32
show he condemned anyone who watches
7:35
pornography and he specifically talked
7:37
about that kind of porn that he happened
7:40
to be watching himself and sharing with
7:42
other employees I mean it's so it's such
7:45
classic projection on the air he's like
7:47
they're degrading these poor women 20
7:49
guys at once it's a plot and by the way
7:52
you'll never guess who he thinks uh the
7:54
plot was hatched by the plot of
7:56
pornography
7:57
juice okay so he's blaming Jewish
8:01
Americans for porn that he himself is
8:04
watching and that's why he's obsessed
8:06
with and then on air he's like oh yeah
8:08
I'll tell you what the universe was
8:10
globalists Etc they're doing the porn
8:11
meanwhile he goes back home he's like I
8:13
love that porn where is it 20 guys at
8:16
once all the genitalia okay and looking
8:20
up the cuckolding Etc so it's a
8:22
catastrophe uh and normally I would feel
8:26
any other human being I'd feel terrible
8:28
about it and you don't look very private
8:30
you know sex life is their own Etc but
8:33
you talking about gay people chopping up
8:34
people's kids on air you sick
8:38
after you know who you are okay take
8:41
your own stupid personal problems and go
8:44
to a Goddamn therapist instead of
8:47
weaponizing your lunatic audience to go
8:50
harm people I mean he needs to get
8:54
substance abuse treatment because he's
8:56
also dealing with a pretty severe issue
8:59
with alcoholism so
9:01
uh one of the employees that has turned
9:05
on him has been speaking out against him
9:07
is this guy named Zach Drucker he worked
9:10
at infowar Wars on and off for about six
9:13
years and so Drucker disclosed that Alex
9:16
Jones would engage in substance abuse at
9:19
work he would be drinking at work uh in
9:22
fact Drucker is the one who leaked
9:24
footage of Alex drinking during the day
9:27
while working at Infowars when he was
9:29
asked why he did it he said that he did
9:31
it to show his co-workers that they're
9:33
dealing with an unstable person Drucker
9:36
also told hate watch that Jones would
9:37
walk around the office carrying a white
9:40
Dixie cup and nine out of ten times
9:42
there would be vodka in it and you'll
9:45
notice that vodka seems to be his liquor
9:47
of choice in some text exchanges he had
9:49
employees pick up vodka and deliver it
9:52
to him to the office okay and I want to
9:56
give you one example of a text exchange
9:58
that he had on February 6th of 2012 20.
10:02
so Alex Jones to Patrick Riley I am sick
10:06
Patrick Riley uh Alex Jones and Patrick
10:09
Riley no slay I guess they would work
10:11
out together so that's what he was
10:12
referring to uh Patrick Riley responds
10:14
sorry to hear uh hear that hope you feel
10:16
better and that he responds tell Derek
10:19
to get me vodka that is you see that
10:22
over and over and over again get me
10:24
vodka get me vodka right now I need the
10:26
Vodka right now okay so all right look
10:29
he's got an alcohol problem again go to
10:32
a therapist deal with it instead of
10:34
dealing with it on air and encouraging
10:35
uh your audience to do Insane things I
10:38
want to quickly go back to what he how
10:42
he treats his wife and how he is um
10:44
having people essentially spy on his
10:46
wife so hate watch found two instances
10:49
where Jones contacts his Security
10:51
employee former Austin Police Department
10:53
Officer and Blackwater mercenary Tim
10:56
Enloe to apparently monitor his wife I
10:59
want to be specific about how he had
11:02
people spy on his wife the other thing I
11:04
wanted to share was just one text
11:06
exchange between Alex Jones and his wife
11:08
so Jones to Erica Wolfe he says you hate
11:13
us
11:14
she never responds to him okay then he
11:17
says I see it in your eyes you won't
11:19
even talk to me pick up now you won't
11:21
even break away for one minute to talk
11:24
to me there have been examples of text
11:26
exchanges that you can read in this
11:28
reporting where he's just texting her
11:30
endlessly over and over again she's not
11:32
responding and then she puts like an
11:34
away message an automatic away message
11:37
uh so as he's texting her the only
11:40
response he gets is like this automatic
11:42
I'm away from my phone right now I'll
11:45
get back to you once I return like that
11:46
kind of thing and he was Furious about
11:48
it well you know what's really romantic
11:50
hiring a black water mercenary to track
11:53
your wife across all across town while
11:55
you're cheating on her and yeah and I
11:58
mean with the by the way his
12:01
um mistress also right wing lunatics
12:05
sending him you know all these messages
12:07
from white supremacist websites about
12:09
the Jews and everybody else of course
12:11
and uh but they but with her she's he's
12:14
a little bit more romantic he's he wants
12:17
her to run a bath for him and he's got
12:19
all these things and when then while
12:21
he's yelling at his wife he's with the
12:23
mistress like where are you what's going
12:25
on with you and someone else okay come
12:27
on it's time for my bath right so look I
12:29
think that the way Infowars is going to
12:31
end is they're going to have like one
12:32
like some sort of convention or
12:33
something and all the crazy guys in the
12:35
audience are going to have sex with each
12:36
other and they're going to be satiated
12:37
and then we're all going to be done with
12:39
this now as long as we don't have to
12:40
hear the details about that that would
12:41
be great
12:43
um now one final thing I'll say okay
12:46
the message that I feel like most
12:48
Americans hear from like the moment
12:50
they're born to the moment they die is
12:52
that the only thing that will make them
12:53
happy is material stuff right Alex Jones
12:56
I mean literally selling weirdo
13:00
supplements brought in hundreds of
13:03
millions of dollars this was fabulously
13:05
wealthy obviously these lawsuits and the
13:07
uh damages he has to pay
13:09
kind of destroyed that but nonetheless
13:13
when all you care about is obtaining
13:16
money and you don't care about who
13:18
you're gonna hurt in your quest for that
13:21
power and money
13:22
you know who you end up like I'll show
13:25
you you end up like this guy this poor
13:27
poor guy no yeah
13:29
precious he fell into a black hole too
13:33
and never got out um think about it so
13:36
that that's Alex Jones in a couple of
13:38
years
13:39
um so
13:41
look
13:42
yeah I I take some joy in Alex Jones
13:45
being
13:46
deeply miserable uh in his private life
13:49
uh this is not a normal debate oh I
13:52
don't like his views on regulation or
13:54
free trade no the guy's a monster it
13:57
encourages his audience to do Terrible
13:59
Things against people who are
14:02
defenseless so our job is to fight back
14:04
against bullies and knowing that those
14:06
bullies might be rich and might have all
14:09
these things but at the end of the day
14:12
they're deeply miserable makes me happy
14:15
and should make you happy the next time
14:18
you get angry about Alex Jones think
14:19
well at least I'll never be as miserable
14:21
as he is here at tyt we work to cut
14:24
through all the establishment media's
14:25
biases and bring you the news from a
14:27
factual and Progressive Viewpoint now
14:29
allow me to introduce you to ground news
14:31
a new tool that you can use to stay
14:33
informed on what's really going on
14:35
around the world ground news doesn't
14:37
just bring you the information it also
14:39
provides you with an easy to use rating
14:41
system that measures each article's
14:43
political leanings factuality and gives
14:46
you complete transparency on who owns
14:49
the news that you're reading like today
14:51
I was on their site and I saw an article
14:53
about some improvements in the ozone
14:54
layer and I was a little skeptical
14:56
because good news about the climate is
14:58
pretty rare these days but with over a
15:00
hundred sources originating from an even
15:02
spread of news organizations I was
15:05
confident that what I was reading was
15:06
true so score one for Earth
15:09
so get the whole picture and break
15:11
through the corporate media agenda by
15:13
subscribing to ground news today
15:20
[Music]
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